Sport

Resilient City have fate in their own hands

Manchester City 3 Aston Villa 1: WHEN HE led the takeover of Manchester City, Sheikh Mansour would have dreamed of a Champions…

TIM RICH at the City of Manchester Stadium
Mon May 03 2010 - 01:00

Manchester City 3 Aston Villa 1:WHEN HE led the takeover of Manchester City, Sheikh Mansour would have dreamed of a Champions League final and in an odd way he will have one on Wednesday night. Victory over Tottenham will put an institution that until recently only won "cups for cock-ups" on the brink of European football's most glittering competition.

“We have what is effectively a Champions League final against Spurs,” Roberto Mancini said, although since Tottenham have won 11 of their last dozen games against Manchester City, the odds are still against him.

It was a defeat against Spurs in December that persuaded the men from Abu Dhabi to bring in Mancini to replace Mark Hughes as manager, and the return fixture might decide whether he remains. His achievement may have been underestimated already.

“When you change countries, you must work very hard and win very quickly,” he said. “But it is harder when you arrive in the middle of a season. You must get to know the players very quickly. But we have a chance, a big chance and it is in our hands.”

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For most of the first half it seemed that this opportunity, like so many before, would slide through Manchester City’s fingers.

As John Carew’s shot slithered under Marton Fulop’s body, you wondered how the wealthiest football club in the world left themselves in a position where they had to rely on an emergency goalkeeper, whose last game for Sunderland saw him concede seven at Chelsea.

Fulop, who was once on Tottenham’s books, will again be at the centre of things on Wednesday despite looking so kittenishly nervous in the first half.

Nevertheless, Manchester City’s defence, directed by Patrick Vieira in front of them, protected him admirably while Adam Johnson, whom Mancini brought to Eastlands with Vieira in the January transfer window, won the penalty and set up Emmanuel Adebayor seconds after Carew’s shot had thundered against the crossbar.

Ultimately, it was Abu Dhabi United Group’s expensive forward recruits – Carlos Tevez, Adebayor and Craig Bellamy – who delivered. And, when he had killed off the match, the Welshman, whose relationship with Mancini can best be described as uneasy, ran over to embrace his manager.

For Martin O’Neill, there was just the chill realisation that the climb towards football’s richest competition was over and that next season it would be steeper. There will be plenty of concession speeches this week but none will be as heartfelt as the one delivered by the Aston Villa manager in the corridors of Eastlands.

In one wistful moment he said that, if he had his time again, he would come back as Alex Ferguson’s assistant at Manchester United, which he described as a job without pressure.

“Even if they don’t make the Champions League, Manchester City will become stronger again,” he said. “To keep up with that is going to be hard. I knew that at the start of this season.

“Manchester City have come from nowhere and who is to say that somebody else with ambition and money doesn’t decide to take on another side that averages crowds of 35,000-40,000?

“But we have to be run like a business because we have seen what has happened to Portsmouth. That is not something I foresee happening at Aston Villa. But we have to get stronger . . . The chairman [Randy Lerner] is coming over in a few days to take in the last match and we will have to sit down and see what he thought of the season.”