Thursday 18 March 2010

More from VK

Our most intelligent and articulate player has claimed that our team spirit is better than we have been given credit for:

“We have proved this season that we have the mental strength, by always coming back stronger from defeats and setbacks,” he said.

And he added his own plot twist to those mentioned, with the departure on loan of Britain’s most expensive footballer Robinho, and added: “All these things have made the group that strong that even if we never get the credit for it we deserve, we will go and do everything we can to finish in that fourth spot.”

And then:

“Time will help us, but at the moment we are becoming stronger as individuals and as a team because of this situation. We will be strong until the end now. It’s never been easy because money has always been a subject when our name gets mentioned.

“Good, positive results were always put in the dark by money talk, and negative results were exposed even more.

“But we have proved we are mentally strong just by being where we are now despite everything that has been happening.”

It's certainly true that no one really talks about the City team spirit. The media narrative this season has run along traditional lines: 'soap opera club' most of the time, 'crisis club' some of the time, 'rollercoaster ride' all of the time. And this is with some justification - there was the transformative and unprecedented spending spree in the summer, a traumatic change of manager in mid-season, the departure of our record signing, three of the most dramatic Manchester derbies in modern history and then a barrage of personal controversies surrounding many of the first team squad.

But despite all that we are still in the race for fourth, and arguably the most likely candidates to take it. And even if our maintenance of that position is somewhat due to the lack of ruthlesness from Spurs, Villa and Liverpool, the fact is that we haven't folded after the double blow of the managerial change and the League Cup semi-final exit. Which suggests that there might be something in Kompany's claims.

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