City will have to shake off comparisons with Chelsea

SOCCER ANGLES:The oil money pumped into Chelsea and now Manchester City can have a toxic side affect, writes MICHAEL WALKER

IT MAY have been of scant consolation to Roberto Mancini but a combination of Manuel Friedrich’s injury-time header and Petr Cech’s non-attempt to save it on Wednesday night at least ensured that Chelsea and their manager Andre Villas-Boas, and not Manchester City and Mancini, became the subject of zealous, sometimes gloating analysis this week.

Both City and Chelsea lost 2-1 away in the Champions League yet, while Chelsea are more likely to be in the last 16 than City, the perceived crisis is at Stamford Bridge not Eastlands. There is Roman Abramovich’s previous impatience to consider.

Had Didier Drogba been awarded the penalty kick he deserved with Chelsea leading 1-0 in Leverkusen then the Chelsea crisis would have been downgraded to problems at home – of which there are enough.

Liverpool’s win at Stamford Bridge last Sunday was further evidence of those. Liverpool won in the 87th minute, so Bayer Leverkusen was a second late defeat in four days.

Chelsea know the line about margins and fine lines – see Moscow – but it has been battered into cliché.

It’s still true though.

City understand that, they have won two of their five Champions League games so far and both were against Villarreal.

The first of these came via a Sergio Aguero winner three minutes into injury-time, a marginal victory if ever there was one.

It is just that it came between a 4-1 home win over Aston Villa and then the result of many seasons, City’s 6-1 historic triumph/demolition/statement of arrival at Old Trafford. Chelsea had lost 3-1 at Manchester United just over a month earlier.

That 6-1 result provides insulation on nights such as Tuesday in Naples when a shiver must run through those who own Manchester City. But for how long? You would not be surprised to discover that the Sheikhs have the Champions League anthem as a ringtone because it is that competition more than the Premier League which gives them the ultimate global calling card.

The aim of winning the Premier League is to be in the Champions League.

City also had a decent penalty claim at 0-0 in their defeat at Bayern Munich, a detail obscured by the Carlos Tevez shenanigans, and Vincent Kompany was correct to say this week that this is a hard group compared to some of the others.

But should City exit via the backdoor while all at the front focus on the draw for the last 16, City’s owners may not relish the lack of profile, even less that what attention they do get is smothered in another German product, schadenfreude.

What motivates the oil-rich men of Abu Dhabi and Qatar in buying into football at City, Paris St Germain and Malaga to name a few, is not wholly clear but it is not a desire to stoke resentment. These are people who want to be players on the world stage, as seen by their new hosting of the Arab League and co-operation in the bombing of Libya.

They already know about a Western backlash, as seen in the reaction to the award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. So you can imagine them being none too pleased at the comments from the Napoli president Antonia de Laurentiis about City being Sheikh Mansour’s “toy”, one he can tire of quickly. Others, though, will have nodded their approval.

A day later it was verging on peculiar to hear ITV’s pundits at Bayer Leverkusen agonise about Chelsea’s last-minute defeat, because outside west London, across England other clubs’ fans will have been delighting in it.

It is just over three years since a former Chelsea manager, Felipe Scolari, addressed the issue of unpopularity when he said: “I want to make Chelsea loved around the world, like Barcelona and Manchester United.

“It’s a surprise when people say Chelsea are unpopular because, when we went to China, they cried for Chelsea. They loved Chelsea. It’s a big surprise people don’t like us in England.”

City have rarely inspired the level of active dislike Chelsea have – even before Abramovich appeared and distorted English and European football with his millions – but De Laurentiis’s remarks will have struck a chord beyond Italy.

After all City’s defeat by Napoli came just four days after the announcement of another big City loss. It was for the financial year 2010-11 and it was £197 million (€230 million).

It was described as “the biggest loss in English football history” and even in the whirling world of the Premier League such sums are not forgotten.

On a game-by-game basis there is genuine appreciation of the abilities of the likes of David Silva and Yaya Toure etc, but when people step back – perhaps even should City win their first League title in 42 years next May – there is sarcasm, and anger and further resentment at worst.

The club’s chief operating officer Graham Wallace referred to City’s “accelerated investment strategy” as the explanation for the gigantic losses. Others, such as Arsene Wenger, call this financial doping and there was another reference to City’s wealth, and Bayern Munich’s, in Wenger’s absorbing recent interview with L’Equipe.

Wenger did not sound beaten exactly, but he admitted certain defeats. Not by Alex Ferguson but by losing Samir Nasri to City for money, Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona for the same – to Barca who carve up Spanish TV rights. Years ago it was Ashley Cole to Chelsea.

Wenger’s tone was not one of bitterness, but of sad realism. He has made mistakes but Arsenal have balanced books when others have not.

City want to show Uefa a “trend” towards breaking even by 2014-15 when the financial fair play rules kick in, but Chelsea have been talking about being sustainable for years.

The truth is they are more reliant on Abramovich’s wealth than football intelligence or nous and Scolari’s words reveal that they do not want this to be the opinion of them.

Abramovich is said to want Villas-Boas to oversee more expansive football. Mancini was under some pressure to provide the same and in the Premier League this season he has delivered.

Domestically the City “project” looks on course and they have earned credit. But as the comments from Napoli show, the bigger picture is still in view. As with Chelsea there will be conditional praise should City prevail, but there will be no lack of smirking if they don’t, and it’s Liverpool away for them tomorrow.

Sheikh Mansour’s original ambition might have been to emulate Chelsea, just not this way.