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With a squad containing the likes of Robinho, Nigel de Jong, and Gareth Barry, the recently-announced signing of Carlos Tevez, and reports of John Terry, Emmanuel Adebayor, Maicon, and David Beckham potentially joining the club, Manchester City gaffer Mark Hughes looks set to create a squad of Real Madrid and Gold Coast United proportions.
But will it work?
Last year’s big-money ventures, thanks to multi-billionaire owner Sheikh Mansour, saw them struggling for cohesion throughout the domestic season, finishing 10th on the league table, and failing to earn any silverware.
Their biggest signing – also the current British record fee for an incoming transfer – 25-year-old Brazilian superstar Robinho, sparked various controversies in mere months of his signing, such as his regular disappearances from training, unexpectedly departing to Brazil without prior notice to the club, and even an arrest over rape allegations.
Despite finishing the season as the team’s overall top scorer with 15 goals across all competitions, his year was relatively underwhelming, and he was known to go unnoticed during matches.
This could very much be down to the team formula, and the lack of understanding Robinho had of the team’s style of play, and the team’s lack of understanding of how Robinho plays. Robinho arrived with a different pre-season to that of his counterparts, and was expected by most to slot into the squad without problem.
Without the knowledge of team tactics and the abilities of your fellow teammates, even the greatest players will have problems finding their feet, in a new environment.
With what seems at times like a large influx of new players joining the Citizens’ ranks, the team cohesion required of a title contender could be difficult to see, in the upcoming season.
I’ve been a long-time advocate of what I’ve come to call, “Finding the formula for the team, not the team for the formula.” This basically entails the requirement to decide what is required to make your team a success, and getting the most of the players you already have at your disposal. It then allows you, in a transfer window, to focus only on finding players that can fill the gaps that need filling.
Current Schalke 04 coach Felix Magath proved that this can be a success, leading Wolfsburg to their first ever Bundesliga title. Real Madrid have shown with the Galacticos that, despite containing some of the world’s biggest names of the time, doing the opposite can easily cause grief for all involved, and little silverware over an extended period.
Former Real Madrid Galactico Zinedine Zidane put the era’s failures down to the name ‘Galacticos.’
Their hindrance was far from just a branding error.
Big-money stars are regularly labelled as divas, are known to fall out with teammates, and criticised for losing the interest in playing to win.
While a lot (if not all) of the recent signings have been due to the money at their disposal, Mark Hughes and the staff at Manchester City must still be applauded for their success in bringing names like Robinho and Carlos Tevez to a lesser-known club, and adding extra excitement to the spectacle that is the mid-year transfer window.
The team’s cohesion is likely to cause a lot of problems, in the upcoming season, but like Robinho’s 08/09 season, we will only see glimpses of the magic we should expect from such a lineup.
Thankfully, managing a club is a constant learning experience, and Mark Hughes will no doubt learn a lot from this experiment.
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