City must banish their Norwegian Blues
- davidjwalker1
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 11 hours ago
The war cry of Superbia in Proelia – Pride in Battle – first featured on Manchester City’s club badge nearly three decades ago.
The bitter irony of the 1997 ‘rebranding’ exercise was not lost on the long-suffering fans, as the team spiralled in a relegation nose-dive down to the third tier of English football.
It was another example of the ‘Typical City’ affliction – a condition which virtually guaranteed City could always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
As Francis Lee – one of City’s favourite sons as a player, but later a much-maligned chairman – once opined: “If cups were awarded for cockups, you wouldn’t be able to move in City’s boardroom.”
Such desperate times have long since been banished.
Sergio Aguero’s last gasp 93:20-minute Premier League winning goal on May 13th, 2012, gave rise to a new, modern day never-say-die mantra – a gloriously feisty, ‘Fight ‘Till The End’ – as the titles and cup final wins have rolled in, under the ownership of Sheikh Mansour.
Pep Guardiola’s tactical genius and creativity have seen him revolutionise the game, but he’s a prime advocate of the belief that, ‘hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.’
Questioning whether a gifted player can perform, ‘on a cold, wet Tuesday night in Stoke,’ is a time-honoured football cliché.
It could easily be applied to Manchester City’s starting XI when querying their attitude and application in sub-zero temperatures, on an artificial pitch in Bodo. The shock 3-1 defeat doesn’t tell the full story. There’s losing and then there’s the manner of losing.
The fact Guardiola’s men didn’t appear to give an arctic monkeys in the embarrassing showing, doesn’t bode well for a team which has lost its way in 2026.
City were decimated in defence and hard hit with injuries and suspensions, but Pep still fielded a team which included the likes of Donnarumma, Rodri, Reijnders, Foden, Cherki, Haaland, O’Reilly, and Ait-Nouri, with Marmoush coming off the bench for the last painful 20 minutes.
Curiously, Guardiola elected to play Ait-Nouri – City’s first ‘specialist’ left back acquisition in the past eight years – on the opposite flank.
Presumably Ake’s susceptibility to injury precluded his selection to play three games in quick succession. It left the inexperienced Alleyne to play a nigh on suicidal high line centre back pairing with Khusanov.
Pep is a genius, but he’d have done well to heed the words of fellow genius – Albert Einstein – when considering his insistence on deploying the hapless defensive strategy.
Einstein famously defined insanity as, ‘that of doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome.’
The inevitable consequence left the 374-strong travelling support feeling as sick as the proverbial parrot, with City showing all the life of the ‘Norwegian Blue’, as portrayed in Monty Python’s legendary ‘Dead Parrot’ sketch.
The classic comedy with Michael Palin and John Cleese may be unfamiliar to many younger City fans, who might want to check it out on YouTube.
In essence, a dissatisfied customer (Cleese) returns a clearly dead ‘Norwegian Blue’ parrot, while the pet shop owner (Palin) absurdly insists it is merely resting, escalating into a farcical denial of obvious reality.
Having dropped out of the top eight automatic Champions League qualification places and picked up just three of the last 12 Premier League points on offer, the reality is City aren’t exactly flying high.
Sticking with a philosophical feathery theme, City can take encouragement from the adage, ‘…a bird does not curse the storm, it learns which winds can still lift it…’
The January signings of Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi for a combined bargain £82.5m, have certainly given City a boost. Credit to Director of Football, Hugo Viana, for bringing in two top Premier League proven players as they enter the prime of their careers.
They’ll both go straight into the starting XI at a time when City historically hit their straps for a strong run-in through to May.
In four of the last five seasons, it’s seen them crowned champions, whereas even when finishing third in the PL last season, they were still the form team after Christmas.
In the aftermath of the Bodo Glimt defeat, Pep said, ‘…everything is going wrong…’ but what he says publicly and what he believes privately are often at odds. Understandably, he often treats the media with disdain with a wicked mix of self-deprecating humour and sarcasm.
Despite the catalogue of casualties – Nunes, Gonzalez, Gvardiol, Dias, Stones, Kovacic, Savinho and Bobb remain sidelined – City are still fighting on all four fronts.
A deserved 2-0 first leg League Cup semi-final win at Newcastle (it should’ve been three had it not been for yet another VAR farce), sees them poised for another trip to the Etihad South.
The 10-1 FA Cup demolition of Exeter has set up a fourth-round tie with Salford (they escaped with just the 8-0 FA Cup hammering at the Etihad last season), so there’s every reason for optimism on that front.
But despite consistently being inconsistent, City could yet end up challenging for the really big prizes.
Mikel Arteta’s perennial bottlers are always ‘gunner’ win the league but have fallen short the last three seasons. With a seven-point lead Arsenal will never have a better chance, but there’s still 48 points up for grabs!
If Guardiola’s tactics were questionable in Norway, his team selection for the earlier Champions League match with Bayer Leverkusen beggared belief.
Inexplicably he made 10 changes which led directly to an abject 2-0 home loss. At least he had the good grace to say he had, ‘…perhaps made too many changes…’ but it was another of those – thankfully rare – examples of Pep pedantry.
The loss of what could’ve/should’ve been six easily winnable points means City must beat Galatasaray (replete with a returning Ilkay Gundogan) to have any chance of avoiding a dreaded play-off to reach the knockout round of 16.
So called ‘legacy supporters’ – those who predate the PR and marketing whims of the 90s, remember all too well how ‘Typical City’ can, and frequently did, kick them in the bollocks.
They know City have no divine right to simply turn up and win games. They’re not shallow and entitled. They haven’t been weaned on multiple Premier League titles, FA and League Cup lifts, endless trips to Wembley and an incredible night in Istanbul.
But what they do have is the right to demand 100% effort from each and every player handed the honour of playing for their club.
In Pep’s own words, “If we lose, we analyse. If we win, we analyse even more.”
Let’s hope he and City will be up for the battles which lie ahead and he and his coaching staff will be doing plenty of analysing.
by David Walker
‘X’ @ReadButNeverRed @djwskyblu
Bluesky @djwskyblu.bsky.social
Yet another great read Mr W 👍.
Two absolutely shocking displays and results it was a relief to get the win and a better performance. We need to push on now with a midweek game coming up. Let's hope the way we froze in the previous two games has been banished to the bad memories cupboard.
Thanks for another great read 🩵