Cook speaks

There's an interesting Garry Cook interview in Saturday's Times, done by Oliver Kay. He covers a host of topics - implying that we're moving for Carlos Tévez, saying that the Kaká saga didn't put him off trying similar moves in the future, and underlining the key theme that the new owners want to build long-term sustainable success.

But there's two other things I want to pick up on. Cook, while defending Hughes, attacked the Eriksson regime and the legacy it left at the club. I've written about this before but it's been a central part of both Hughes' approach to managing City, and Hughes' public pronouncements on City. And now Hughes is sure in his position, Cook takes up two of the core criticisms of the Eriksson regime:

"People talk about the previous season under Sven-Göran Eriksson, but for the second half of it we were close to relegation form. Since then it's a clear upward trend and that will continue."

And then:

“Mark admits he made an assumption that players wanted to come in, train hard and go through their dietary requirements. He made the assumption that gym and medical facilities were Premier League quality. Then he got here and realised they weren't."

There are two strategic benefits to this approach. One is that it creates a mandate for all of the changes Hughes made when he gets here - from intense fitness sessions to dropping Elano. The more he paints 2007/08 as a dismal failure, the more room for manouevre he has. It's a standard tactic - how many times has Harry Redknapp mentioned two points from eight games this season? But the second way is more important: by building up the importance of the necessary changes, he has his excuses in early for any 'teething problems' that may occur. In the relegation zone in December? Don't worry - they're still ironing out problems they inherited. I don't mean this as criticism - it's perfectly understandable. What is interesting though is that Garry Cook has totally adopted the Hughes discourse, just days after Hughes' future at the club was assured.

It's nice to hear how enthusiastic Cook is about the team, too. He says:

"It has been a rollercoaster. I cried when we equalised at Blackburn. I had to ask for a cigarette after the penalty shoot-out in Aalborg in the Uefa Cup."

I know there's a hint of the management speak expert about Cook, but when you hear him talk about City he does seem genuine; and so I'm inclined not to be cynical and take him on his word about this. The downside of the management speak aspect of Cook, though, is that he can come up with sentences which really struggle to mean anything. And he uses one of the strangest analogies I've ever heard:

We called it the bowling-ball syndrome. Every time you opened a cupboard, another one landed on your head.

I have quite literally no idea what that means. If you can extract any meaning from it, please leave it in the comments.