From Red to Blue as City nab Sparky

If you leaf through those players who were revered by the Stretford End, the number of attacking players immediately stick out at you. The likes of Best, Law, Charlton, Jordan, Giggs, Cantona, Cole, Van Nistelrooy, Ronaldo. Each of whom have earned their place in the folklore of Manchester United. Another one of those United fans would instantly name is Mark Hughes, who had 2 highly successful spells at Old Trafford, scoring 164 goals in 470 games for the club. In a glittering playing career, he won 2 league titles, 3 FA Cups, the European Cup Winners Cup and a League Cup with the Reds, and was quite often the scourge of their Manchester rivals in derby fixtures.

But today, Hughes put all this aside as he took over as Manchester City manager after Sven-Goran Eriksson’s departure. Earlier on this blog, I made my views about that affair and City’s owner Thaskin Shinawatra quite clear but it is my belief that they have picked a tremendous successor to the Swede.

Since retiring from playing in 2002, the Welshman has embarked on a successful managerial career. In 1999 he was appointed manager of Wales, despite still playing with Southampton, and latterly with Everton and Blackburn Rovers.

His time in charge of his country is most noted for their Euro 2004 qualifying campaign, where they finished 2nd in their group to Italy, forcing a play off match with Russia. Although this included a famous defeat of the Italians in Cardiff, they fell at the last hurdle to the Russians over 2 legs.

But Hughes’ work had not gone unnoticed and in September of 2004 he took charge of Blackburn, following Graeme Souness’ move to Newcastle. Working on a shoestring budget, Hughes guided Rovers to Premier League safety and an FA Cup semi final, their first in over 40 years, but they lost out to Arsenal.

Rovers continued to improve under his guidance and a superb 6th place finish in his second season ensured European football back at Ewood Park. They reached the UEFA Cup round of 32 the following season, losing out to German side Bayer Leverkusen.

Another top ten finish and FA Cup semi final appearance, along with this season’s 7th place, saw his stock rise still further. Working with one of the smaller budgets in the Premier League, with one his bigger buys being Roque Santa Cruz for around £3.5 million, it is widely acknowledged that Hughes has worked miracles with Blackburn, establishing them as one of England’s leading clubs.

But today he moved back to Manchester with the blue side, citing greater potential at Eastlands for the move. He said: “I had a fantastic time at Blackburn.

“There was a limit to how far I could take the club and it’s a case now that I’m at a club that can match my ambitions.”

Clearly, Hughes will not let past club loyalties get in the way of his progression as a manager, and that has to warm the hearts of City’s fans. With all due respect to Blackburn, a club whom I greatly admire, Hughes has joined a far bigger club- larger squad, larger fanbase and they are awash with money thanks to Shinawatra, in contrast to the more limited resources available to him at Ewood.

He sees City as a club that can, and should, challenge regularly in Europe and in domestic competition. Given the success he had signing bargain players at Blackburn, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Sparky can have City reaching cup finals and challenging the European spots in the league with financial backing.

Early on at Blackburn, Hughes’ team had a reputation for being physical, which Arsene Wenger complained about after the aforementioned FA Cup semi final. But Hughes progressively built a side that was attractive to watch, with players such as Santa Cruz, Morten Gamst Pedersen and England star David Bentley coming to prominence and giving Blackburn a real zest and flair to their play.

And that sort of level is what City’s supporters will be hoping for. They saw it for the first half of the season under Eriksson and they will hope Hughes can restore that in the coming season. I still feel that Shinawatra was perhaps hasty in sacking the Swede, but I have to feel that he will have appeased the supporters by acquiring Hughes.

It poses the question though- if he is successful at Eastlands, could he be the man to eventually succeed Sir Alex Ferguson when he retires from Manchester United? I wouldn’t be surprised at that.

But that is for the future. For the present, what is Blackburn’s loss will almost certainly be Manchester City’s gain. The fact he is a hero of their sworn rivals will eventually be forgotten.

“Champions” League? You’re havin’ a laugh!

Now that the dust has settled after Manchester United’s victory over Barcelona last night, attention switches to the second semi final to determine who will play Sir Alex Ferguson’s men in the Champions League final at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium. Will it be Chelsea, hot on United’s heels in the Premier League, or their arch enemy Liverpool?

While I believe that Chelsea will just about edge the tie thanks to the 1-1draw they secured in the first leg at Anfield (goals from that are below), that isn’t the point of this latest post. My latest whine is one which has bugged me for quite a while, and that is the set-up of Europe’s elite club competition.

This year’s final will be the third in which two sides from the same country will go head to head for the European Cup, as it was known when the tournament first started. In 2000, Real Madrid defeated Valencia 3-0 in Paris, while in 2003 Ac Milan edged Juventus on penalties at Old Trafford after a forgettable 0-0 stalemate. We are now guranteed an English winner of the competition.

Listening to Richard Bacon’s show on Radio 5 Live last night, he urged callers to phone in with regards the difficulties in which fans of the English clubs will face getting to Moscow and while they are there. Main concerns included the cost of flights and accomodation, with one Manchester United fan telling how he’d spent £5,000 to be there, as well as visas which are needed to enter Russia. These can take a while to process and while UEFA are confident the visas will be issued on time to supporters of the clubs involved in time for the final, fans are still worried.

So cue calls for the game to be moved to Wembley, the home of the English game, to make it easier for fans. Undoubtedly it would, but it shouldn’t be moved, and neither should there be as many as 42,000 visas to process.

Because, my friends, the Champions League should live it to its name- ie, be for Champions only. Since the tournament began in 1955, the cup was solely for the league winners of each European country. Other qualifiers included the Fairs Cities (now UEFA) Cup and the now defunct Cup Winners Cup, which was, you’ve guessed it, a tournament for domestic cup winners across the continent.

But in the 90s, UEFA in their wisdom ditched the CWC (the last ever final played in Birmingham and won by Italian side Lazio) and increased the Champions League, allowing runners up in domestic leagues to qualify for the tournament. Indeed, Manchester United qualified for the 1998/99 tournament after finishing 2nd in the English league to Arsenal, and went on to lift the trophy.

It has now been extended to the point where up to four teams from the bigger leagues in Europe can qualify for the tournament. Whats “Champion” about that? Why not rebrand it the “1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place” league?

While there is no doubt that the bigger sides in Europe can provide entertainment, there is a detremental effect. There is no doubt that the big name advertisers of the competiton, for example Sony, Mastercard and Vodafone, would rather the big guns participated all the time and provide much more revenue.

But, as the rich get richer, the poorer get poorer and we now see the winner of the tournament is near enough guaranteed to be an English, Spanish or Italian team, barring some exceptions, such as Porto in 2004. What chance have clubs from the Belgian league or Swedish league have of competing if they face a couple of rounds to qualify, despite winning their league, while the likes of Arsenal can qualify after finishing third in theirs, simply because the English league has a higher standing according to Michel Platini and the UEFA fat cats? It isn’t fair.

In 1994, Sweden’s IFK Gothenburg knocked Manchester United out of the Champions League. Now, it’s a struggle for Sweden’s champions to even participate. The worst thing UEFA could do was get rid of a successful competition in order to create a bigger Champions League to benefit the bigger clubs.

Some might say they’d far rather watch Liverpool V Chelsea instead of an Anderlecht V Barcelona as the gulf in the latter game would be massive, while the former would be close. Me? Well, give me the latter. If clubs from around Europe, not just the big names, were given a fair and equal shot at qualifying, the experience and finance they’d generate would enable them to compete in the coming years. As it stands, games we see at least twice a season domestically are becoming four or more due to being on Europe’s biggest stage. Its dull and its wrong.

“Champions” League? You are indeed having a laugh.