Hughes' City Booed Already

Manchester City lost to FC Midtjylland last night. It really does make you wonder how we lost to this outfit at home and away last season. This side, who I imagine you’ve never heard of, were runners up in the Danish league last season.

“Maybe they didn’t know the names of any single player in our team,” said the coach of the opposition. “Maybe they made stupid decisions, because they lost the ball and thought it would be so easy to get it back.”

Transfer requests, booing fans, corrupt owners and an unhappy boss. And Manchester City is the haven we expected…

Their owner has arrest warrants out for him whilst the Premier League are deciding whether he’s fit and proper to be in charge of an English club, and the club are losing to European nobodies to get a place in the UEFA Cup. This isn’t the rosy World bluenoses were imagining when ol Thaksin took over.

With Thaksin’s £800 million frozen, it begs the question who will pay the wages? Or are we to imagine Hughes, Jo, Micah Richards and Benjani are there for the love of the club?

Whilst Mark Hughes has insisted that he is staying, Vedran Corluka has handed in a transfer request, in a desperate bid to get out of Wastelands and join Spurs. Still, he’s got to see his new team booed at the very beginning of the season and think what the hell was he thinking about taking on that job. Has he already forgotten the abuse City fans dish out to their own players, as much as any opposition. I’ve sat in the City seats on derby day when tickets have been hard to come by, and every time I’m left chuckling when the fans call their own players all the names under the sun.

However, even I’m surprised to learn that City fans are booing their team before the domestic season has even started! Or was this a protest against Shinawatra? If so, it’s come a year too late, against this “human rights abuser of the worst kind.”

“We need to get up to speed,” said Hughes after the Midtjylland defeat. “We certainly weren’t there this evening. We did not play at a level we expect to. I believe we have good players here but, unfortunately, we did not get the performance we needed from the vast majority of them.”

So, this is what Mark Hughes gave up his possible Manchester United future for. A bunch of booing, bitter bluenoses. I don’t know whether to laugh or feel insulted!