'It's heartbreaking the way it's finished'

Difficult reading for City fans this morning: Stephen Ireland's first major interview as a Manchester City player. He describes what life is now like at City for a player who has grown up at the club, and how the new management and players have pulled the club away from how it used to be:

'I've been there eight or nine years, but loyalty doesn't matter much to that club any more. It's heartbreaking the way it's all finished.

'From my part there is only sadness. People who I grew up playing with and who coached me are now gone. There are lots of faces who don't feel that much for Manchester City and a lot of the homegrown guys feel like that.'

It's certainly sad for the fans, too, to see players that we've grown up with being pushed out by new arrivals. It shouldn't even need to be said that these academy players are important to us and that I would like to see a successful City team based on them. What this summer has taught is that it's not going to happen. Or at least, this coming City team will not have the 1986-88 generation at its core - or even on its periphery. I don't want to start writing another blog post but my position on this is that if we win something this year it will mean so much to me that the question of how we have done it or with whom will be irrelevant. But if I'm choosing between an average team of Academy players and an average team of mercenaries, well, that's not much of a choice.

Anway, Ireland goes on to talk about his lack of a personal relationship with Roberto Mancini:

'I felt unwanted,' he added. 'I felt like I was banging my head up against a concrete wall. In fact, I haven't felt part of it at Manchester City for the past 18 months.

'It didn't matter what I did in training, I wasn't ever going to get anywhere.

'I didn't share a relationship with Mancini. The last manager I had a relationship with was Mark Hughes - Mancini doesn't do relationships.

'He brought Patrick Vieira into the club. When I spoke with Patrick, he said that he worked with Mancini for seven or eight years but he didn't have one with him either. I think that's the way Mancini is. He has everyone on edge.

This, I'm less concerned about. I can see that it might be difficult for Ireland - who was so close to Mark Hughes - finding a manager who was much less keen to extend that arm round the shoulder that Ireland needs. But the same criticism has been made of Fabio Capello's managerial style with England. And while it might sound cruel from the outside it's clearly not an unsuccessful approach. Between them Mancini and Capello have won eight Scudetti, four Coppa Italias plus two La Ligas and one Champions League. It does work. Some 'Hughes players' have flourished under Mancini: Carlos Tévez, Vincent Kompany, to a lesser extent Kolo Touré and Pablo Zabaleta. It's a real sadness that Ireland is not one of them but I don't know how willing I am to blame Mancini for that.

Then there were some criticisms of young players at City wearing '£10,000 wristwatches' which might be an interesting point were it not being made by someone who has themselves indulged in conspicuous and dare I say vulgar consumption in the past.