Timid City must turn into tigers
WHY don’t they get it? As the latest bad week for Engli s h clubs i n the Champions Le ag u e unfolded, I kept asking myself that question about Manchester City.
With the squad they have assembled and the money that has been spent, games at the Etihad Stadium should be one of the most daunting tasks in Europe but that is far from the case and Juventus were the latest visiting team to find it all too comfortable.
Is it the Champions League theme being played before kick-off rather than Blue Moon t hat s ets t he t one? Do supporters feel they belong in the competition or are they still in awe of the teams they are coming up against?
Whatever the reason, you get the impression that City fans are treating it like a night at the opera: they turn up, take their seats quietly and sit back to watch the action unfold, waiting to be entertained by the stars on show.
It doesn’t work like that. I keep hearing people say that you have to play in a different way now in the Champions League but that is nonsense. Why should you try to beat foreign teams playing on their terms when they find our game so difficult to deal with?
I remember what it was like when Liverpool were in Europe. I won the Champions League and UEFA Cup, and played in another final, but I don’t ever r emember us taking on a top team and out-footballing them.
Whether i t was Gerard Houllier or Rafa Benitez — two foreign managers who were in charge of teams that were made up largely of foreign players — the message would be the same: European opponents hated playing against fast, aggressive, physical football.
We would go away from home and play by our opponents’ rules: we would allow them to set the pace but we would defend as one and look to frustrate the crowd; of course, we would hardly get a kick and have to sacrifice ourselves, but back at Anfield it would be completely different.
From the first whistle, we were like caged tigers. I always wanted to make my first tackle count, to shake whoever I was marking and lift the crowd. For the f i rst 20 minutes, our goalkeepers would kick the ball long so we could hem in whoever we were playing and make it as uncomfortable as possible.
The pressure would build that way. You would make every second ball a fight. If there was a set-piece, it would be delivered straight into the penalty area. The tempo would whip up the crowd. They would become our extra man and they would feed off the energy. It was no surprise we scored a lot of goals in those frenzied opening periods.
A game against Juventus in 2005 was a prime example. The side Fabio Capello picked for that Champions League quarter-final was much better than the one which City faced, as a spine of Gianluigi Buffon, Fabio Cannavaro, Pavel Nedved, Alessandro del Piero and Zlatan Ibrahimovic shows.
Could we have beaten Juventus at their own game? No. But they found themselves two goals down after 25 minutes, with Sami Hyypia volleying in from a corner and Luis Garcia smashing in a volley after a long ball fell into his path. Juventus never recovered from that opening blitz and we went on to face Chelsea. But Liverpool were not the only English team to enjoy success with that tactic. Chelsea made full use of Didier Drogba’s physicality in Europe, Manchester United would make games as fast as possible at Old Trafford under Sir Alex Ferguson as he ensured the game was played to their strengths.
That’s what I don’t understand now about Manchester City. I could understand them being tentative when they first entered the Champions League but now they have experience, their record at home should be much better.
When I watch them at the Etihad, the pace and the atmosphere can resemble a pre-season friendly.
It can’t continue. They have explosive, aggressive players and there are times in the Champions League when they need to be even more dynamic than they are in Premier League games.
It is what the crowd demands. Manuel Pellegrini (above) has seen his team destroy sides at home regularly in recent years and so it is baffling why they have not been doing similar in Europe.
If City fail to involve their fans in their remaining home group games against Borussia Monchengladbach and Sevilla, they are going to continue to have big problems making an impression in the competition.