Leeds fans have it right - City are nothing special

 

Roberto Mancini was talking up his chances of a late challenge for the title after Sunday's FA Cup romp over Leeds. But Ralph Ellis thinks Manchester City have had so many turning points they are going round in circles...

 

The 6,000 strong travelling army of Leeds supporters delivered their damning verdict on Manchester City with a piece of classic gallows humour. "You're nothing special," they sang. "We lose every week."

 

If there were any hopes that yesterday's 4-0 thumping of a once great club that has fallen on hard times would mark a turning point for Roberto Mancini's men, then that probably put it into context. The trouble with this season for City is that it has been littered with apparent turning points, but every one of them turned out not to be.

 

There was a 2-1 win at West Brom back in October, the week after beating Sunderland 3-0, which was hailed as a sign of some grittiness getting back in the team.  Cue a collapse at Ajax in the Champions League four days later.

 

There was a 5-0 win over Aston Villa, albeit with the help of a dodgy penalty decision to get the goals rolling, followed by a run of one win in six games. And finally a promising sequence of five straight victories from the turn of the year, but then just two points from QPR, Liverpool and Southampton.

 

You couldn't blame Mancini for talking up an eye catching FA Cup performance, or suggesting it was a "brodino" - an Italian soup starter - ready for Sunday's Premier League meeting with Chelsea. But the problem is you've no idea if the main course will be served hot or cold.

 

I have a lot of sympathy for the Italian. It's not as if he didn't warn his bosses at the club that they couldn't afford to stand still last summer. But while he was demanding they went and got Robin van Persie, he ended up with Jack Rodwell as his most significant recruit. Even when the January window was open for the rest of the Premier League, it stayed shut at the Etihad Stadium - other than for Mario Balotelli to leave.

 

The whole thing has echoes of when Blackburn Rovers became champions in 1995. Sir Jack Walker's money had bought them Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton, then David Batty late in the season to see them over the line. The players waited for the next wave of internationals to come, but instead the club signed Matty Holmes and Graham Fenton. Who? Exactly.

 

Rovers finished seventh the next season. The view in the dressing room that the owners had achieved their ambition by winning the title, rather than merely taken the first step on a road to lasting glory, was the main reason Shearer encouraged Newcastle to take him back to Tyneside.

 

This time you can imagine the likes of Joe Hart, Yaya Toure or Sergio Aguero looking around the dressing room waiting for the next big arrivals, and simply getting confused when they haven't come. City are now 2.86 favourites to win the FA Cup, mainly because Manchester United and Chelsea are in the same quarter-final fixture. But their lack of consistency all season makes that still a dangerous bet.

 

I suggested at Christmas time that laying City for a top two finishcould be worth a flutter. I haven't changed my mind at the current price of 1.41. Chelsea are a work in progress too, of course, but you sense the return of John Terry might give them some steel. And the brutal truth about Manchester City remains, as the Leeds fans spelled out, they are nothing special.

 

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