Blackburn reax

Ian Herbert, Independent on Sunday

Adebayor was the summer acquisition who seemed least to fit into the work ethic which Hughes has demanded from a club who he believes have lacked professionalism for years. But to go with his goal – a work of beauty – was the distance the striker covered deep in midfield linking with Craig Bellamy, who finished with a huge distance run, as well as Robinho.

"I thought his general play and attitude to team-mates was excellent," Hughes said of Adebayor last night. "If you've got front men who will chase and harry and try to rectify mistakes, those are great qualities. Everyone was bouncing off everyone else."

Paul Wilson, The Observer

As openings to new City eras go, the whole of the game was less convincing. Blackburn were slightly unlucky. Stephen Ireland's late goal put a flattering gloss on a performance that had been adequately impressive without suggesting the top four need quake in their boots just yet.

Hughes will have been pleased with a clean sheet and satisfied that his players kept their composure under pressure, but not even the City manager would argue the visitors had been a class apart from their opponents. For the 86 minutes or so between the two goals there was not that much to choose between the two sides, and several occasions when Hughes's wisdom in signing Shay Given was abundantly demonstrated.

Jonathan Northcroft, The Sunday Times

The statistics suggest City are transformed. This was their first away clean sheet in the League since August 31, 2008, and they now have half the number of away wins as last season.

The onfield indicators were more mixed. Theirs was a performance that grew more impressive as the game progressed. Emmanuel Adebayor scored a gorgeous goal after just three minutes but the next hour belonged to Blackburn. Shay Given made as many saves as in a game when his old Newcastle defence was in front of him and Kolo Toure and Gareth Barry were required to display the defensive acumen that influenced Hughes’ decision to pay a combined £28m for them. Barry was less impressive creatively, hitting too many speculative forward passes, and was not the only City player to distribute the ball poorly. Robinho going missing away from home is also one of life’s certainties.

Joe Bernstein, Mail on Sunday

It showed what you can get for £76m-the combined price paid for the three forwards involved. But if that was the good side of the City 'project', as it is fashionably called now, the rest of the first half showed why the sceptics, including Sir Alex Ferguson, doubt the club can finish in a Champions League qualification place, let alone challenge for the title.

Rovers manager Sam Allardyce predictably used the long ball to unsettle City and to a large extent it worked. While new signings Gareth Barry, Adebayor and Kolo Toure toiled and Carlos Tevez watched from the bench - just like being at United, eh Carlos? - City relied on two Premier League stalwarts to survive. Dunne, who probably would not have even been playing had Everton let Joleon Lescott leave, got his head and body in the way of everything.

Duncan White, Sunday Telegraph

City continued to struggle to impose themselves on the game and their forays into the Rovers half were only really effective when they counter-attacked at pace.

This approach is clearly not sustainable. City could not retain possession, the team are not designed for it. The central midfielders, Stephen Ireland and Gareth Barry, are box-to-box players — the more reflective Nigel de Jong was left on the bench and they need a player of his composure to anchor the freewheeling Robinho.

Blackburn 0 - 2 City

• The perfect start. We are already halfway to matching our number of away league wins from last season. More important, though, was that we battled our way to success. Anyone can win when playing well. But to win a battle - against tough opponents, in difficult conditions, at a hostile ground - this is the stuff of the Big Four. Next stop: Fratton Park. Same again, please.

• More interesting is that this battling performance was put in by a rather attack-minded team. Hughes surprised many of us by adopting a system that wasn't exactly a great success last year: one holding midfielder (Gareth Bary, then Stephen Ireland, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Robinho and two strikers - Emmanuel Adebayor and Craig Bellamy in this case. Not quite 4-1-5, but not exactly the cautious approach we expected. So for that team to grind out at win at Ewood Park is a real testament to our mental strength. We'll be even tougher when Nigel de Jong (or Kompany or Zabaleta) are drafted in alongside Barry.

• Of our many forwards, it was a triumph for Adebayor to score on his debut. A goal taken with the confidence one would expect of a £25million striker, he combines physicality with technicality in a way we're not really used to at City. We've seen a lot of the former alone (Corradi, Benjani, Caicedo, Vassell), a bit of the latter (Bianchi, Sturridge), too much of neither (Dickov, Samaras) - but both? This is novel.

• Until we buy another centre back our defence will continue to be in a state of transition. Kolo Touré did well - and Shay Given kept us in the game - but it's hard to see how Richard Dunne has a long term future at City while we're so actively pursuing other options. If we do buy Lescott (or Distin or Upson) then Dunne would presumably be third choice, relegating Onuoha to fourth choice - a strange position given his new contract and our lack of European football. So we're still not quite the finished product.
  

Team mates

Wayne Bridge and Shaun Wright-Phillips were on Soccer AM's teammates this morning. They revealed that the worst trainer was Tal Ben Haim (because he kicks people), the jokers were Bridge and SWP themselves along with Nigel de Jong, hardest was Kompany. Robinho won best dancer and most skilful, Micah Richards was worst dressed, Nedum Onuoha most intelligent, Stephen Ireland best trainer and Shay Given had the worst music taste.

Craig Bellamy was the biggest moaner, not that we needed that confirmed.

Blackburn preview

Where better to start than Ewood Park?

It's the ground where Mark Hughes made his name as a manager, where he built the reputation that kept him in his job despite last season's disappointments, but which must be replaced by real achievements at City if he is to stay in his job.

It's also the ground where we turned around last season - where, had Daniel Sturridge and Robinho not scored late goals, the second half of the season would have been rather uncomfortable. We may not be discussing an opening day fixture with Blackburn Rovers, with Mark Hughes as our manager, had they not.

More importantly, though, it is the first of a series of difficult away games that will define our season. As everyone knows, our home and away form were miles apart last year: more home away wins than anyone but United, fewer away wins than anyone but West Brom. If we are to achieve what we ought to this season we will need to drag our away form up towards what we can do at home. And while I'm not expecting us to win at Anfield or Stamford Bridge yet, we really need to start winning at bad teams.

Just read last season's table from the bottom up and see how we did at the various grounds: we lost 2-1 at WBA, lost 2-0 at Boro, drew 2-2 at Newcastle, drew 2-2 at Hull, won 3-0 at Sunderland (!!!), drew 2-2 at Blackburn, lost 2-0 at Portsmouth, lost 2-0 at Bolton, lost 1-0 at Stoke, and lost 2-1 at Wigan. So that's six points from a possible thirty at the bottom ten clubs. If we want sixth, we need to do better.

The success or not of this campaign, then, will be largely determined by our ability either to neutralise or to conquer the battlefields of the bottom half: first Ewood Park today, then Fratton Park at the end of the month, the DW Stadium in October, St. Andrew's in November, the Reebok Stadium and Molineux in a packed December, the Brittania in January, the KC Stadium in February and then Turf Moor in April. Eighteen or even twenty points from those ten games and we'll be doing well. But this starts today.

Groundwork completed

One of the key themes of the ADUG/Cook/Hughes era thus far has been investment - not just in the playing staff - but in the club's infrastructure. Medical and training facilities have received long overdue improvements, as Hughes' experience and ambition have met with the ADUG cash to allow us, finally, to move beyond the old Wardle/Bernstein/Lee club groundwork.

This is something that Hughes talked about a lot last season - that our failure to make swift progress was, in part, down to these necessary, but unsettling changes in both players and infrastructure. Now, of course there is a strategic element here - we did underachieve last season, and of course the manager will use an excuse where possible to explain that. But in two very revealing profiles of the club by Martin Samuel and Ian Herbert in today's papers, it has emerged that this work is done and the club is now ready to turn it to our advantage.

From Ian Herbert:

A medical facility approaching the size of a cottage hospital is another addition to a complex which the England team doctor, Ian Beasley, esteems the best in the country, and its 10 beds and massage facilities are an accoutrement the City manager Mark Hughes has found more valuable than he would have hoped with his signings going down like flies.

That's as maybe. The significance of the training facility, part of an £8m investment in the infrastructure of Manchester City by Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed al-Nahyan in the close season, is the signal it provides that the club – derided, loathed and ridiculed by so many – are actually at the start of something refreshingly new and not abominably nouveau as so many want to have it.

And see Hughes' reaction in the Martin Samuel article:

City, at that time, had four treatment tables in the medical centre serving every player at the club, from the first team to the academies. It meant that after training sessions there could be a queue to rival an NHS waiting room; and last season City had plenty of injuries.

‘When we get down sometimes, if results are not going our way and things are not progressing as quickly as we would like, we look around here and realise how far we’ve come,’ said Hughes.

‘This place was not fit for purpose. There was no care here, no pride, it was not a building in which a professional could do his best work. When I compared it to what I had at Blackburn Rovers, for instance, it felt like stepping back in time. Since we walked through the door it has changed beyond all recognition.’

As a fan, we can only take the management on their word on this sort of thing. But it does sound like good news.

RSC: 'There are no limits'

Nice, confident sounding interview with the Premier League's most expensive back up striker - Roque Santa Cruz - by Daniel Taylor in The Guardian tomorrow. Here is about the chances of our challenging for the title:

"That's the aim," he says. "Certainly in the coming years. That's why I came here. First, we have to look at breaking into the top four. That's our target this year and it's realistic. Beyond that, though, there are no limits. The owners have shown they will do everything to get this club to the top. They want the club to win the league and I don't think there is anything now that can stop what has already started."

And on the winning mentality required to do so:

"It's the pressure and expectation I want to have," he says. "When I was at Bayern we had that kind of pressure in every game. The mentality was simple: no matter what game it is, you have to win. And I think that's what we'll find here this season, too. It is the main thing. Once you have that belief, you know exactly where you are going."

Trophy holders

Mark Hughes has spoken of the trophy winning experience within the current squad:

“We’ve added to the quality in the squad and, when you do that, you have a better chance of winning games. We made a list of all the honours this group of players have won and they include Champions League winners, Premier League winners, FA Cup winners, top international players, etc. The list is huge.

“You have to understand what it takes to win trophies and that’s what we have in this group now. You expect them to come to the fore when you have to come back from situations that look uncomfortable.”

So here's the list.

Champions League

2001 Roque Santa Cruz
2008 Carlos Tévez

Premier League

2001/02 Stuart Taylor
2003/04 Kolo Touré
2004/05 Wayne Bridge
2005/06 Shaun Wright-Phillips
2007/08 Carlos Tévez
2008/09 Carlos Tévez

FA Cup

2003 Stuart Taylor, Kolo Touré
2005 Kolo Touré
2007 Wayne Bridge, Shaun Wright-Phillips

League Cup

2007 Wayne Bridge, Shaun Wright-Phillips
2009 Carlos Tévez

La Liga

2006/07 Robinho
2007/08 Robinho

Bundesliga

1999/2000 Roque Santa Cruz
2000/01 Roque Santa Cruz
2002/03 Roque Santa Cruz
2004/05 Roque Santa Cruz
2005/06 Roque Santa Cruz

Brazilian Championship

2002 Robinho
2004 Robinho
2005 Carlos Tévez

Then there's Vincent Kompany's two Belgian Leagues, plus Robinho's three trophies with the Brazilian national side (two Confederations Cups and a Copa America too) and all sorts of minor trophies too. So it's a pretty impressive record all told.

Season preview

New seasons are always exciting. The thrill of the clean slate on opening day is central to the rhythm of football support. If we didn't believe that a summer's transfers and changes could lead to a fresh start, a new hope for our club, there wouldn't be much point in spending our summers glued to Sky Sports News.

So, whoever we'd signed this summer, I'd be excited tonight. But the fact is that we have just undergone a summer of spending unprecedented in our history, if not in the history of British football. Not that it needs repeating, City have spent £94m this summer on a host of players with experience at the top end of the Premier League: Carlos Tévez, Emmanuel Adebayor, Roque Santa Cruz, Gareth Barry and Kolo Touré have all come in to supplement a squad which was already stronger than its tenth placed finish in 2008/09 would suggest.

And so expectations for 2009/10 are higher than they have been for any season during my life time. Our summer additions have imaged possibilities of football success unlike anything we've seen in years. We may not win anything this year. It is a truism that wealth is a necessary but not sufficient factor for success (if I hear the phrase Zidanes y Pavones again I'll scream) - but the clarity of purpose of Sheikh Mansour is such that if we stray from the path that he has set, we can be confident that necessary changes will mean our continuing to move in the right direction.

For this year, though, we have a clear target: sixth. And no one can seriously doubt that, even without Joleon Lescott, we have the necessary resources now to achieve that. Measured step by measured step, we're heading for the very top.

Away

I'm in France until Friday. It's quite a relief to get away at this time of the year, just as the anticipation is building.

Although I was away this time last year, when we were first almost selling Corluka to Spurs, and losing to Midtjylland at home, which spoilt my holiday somewhat.

City 2 - 1 Celtic

• After a few disappointing games, it was nice to see a good display in our final pre-season friendly (the Trofeu Joan Gamper is better described as a mid-season friendly.) We looked like a more coherent team than we had done before, and played some nice attacking football.

• The de Jong-Barry axis in central midfield looked very strong. Like Mascherano and Alonso at Liverpool in recent years, their complimentary destructive and creative capabilities make for a perfect pairing. They dictated the game in the first half, and Barry took his goal very well.

• Roque Santa Cruz was our only attacking player that we didn't see. Him aside, Craig Bellamy, Emmanuel Adebayor, Carlos Tévez, Robinho, Martin Petrov, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Vladimir Weiss all played a part. Some were brighter than others, but the movement and interplay was always promising. Who exactly will play at Ewood Park remains unclear.
  

• The defense, though, remains an issue. Kolo Touré limped off, so we played most of the match with Tal Ben Haim and Richard Dunne at centre back, which was never the plan. As with Rangers last week, a better team would have scored more goals against us.
  

• One defender who did impress was Pablo Zabaleta: he was solid throughout and his cross for Barry's goal was perfect. Some people like to frame the Richards/Zabaleta issue as risk v security, or attack v defence, and while it's certainly true that Zabaleta is better defensively than Richards he's also better going forward. Richards' runs are great, but when in good position his decisions and delivery are never as good as Pablo's. I've never seen Richards put in a cross as good as Zabaleta's today (or his assist for Benjani at Craven Cottage in December.)