Tom Lappin: Despite riches, City still looking at United's success with envy

Published on Friday 8 May 2009 23:12

ALL that money and nobody to buy. Manchester City's owners have been forced to acknowledge the truth of that old Scouse saying "money can't buy you love" ever since that humble Brazilian genius Kaka turned down his own gold-encrusted jumbo jet and the Koh-I-Noor to stay at Milan.

Instead their largesse brought them only the solid but unglamorous Irish goalkeeper Shay Given.

What makes it worse is that across the city, the Glazer dynasty keep juggling one of the world's largest overdrafts and still keep attracting the world's biggest football names to Old Trafford. Manchester United's ongoing campaign to defend their domestic and European titles has been advanced this week against the backdrop of further transfer speculation. Stories suggesting that Franck Ribery will join them from Bayern Munich in the summer for a world record fee of upwards of 60 million might even have been timed to increase the inferiority complex at City ahead of tomorrow's derby match.

Before the Glazers' creditors start getting sweaty palms about all that cash in the deficit column, the Ribery deal is assumed to be dependent on Cristiano Ronaldo finalising his tortuously protracted transfer to Real Madrid. Although, as they heave a sight of fiscal relief at that consolation, they should recall that if United want to retain the services of Carlos Tevez (the fans do, the manager is less certain) they are looking at an outlay north of 20 million.

All these summer sprees are reliant on the fluctuations of the Portuguese player's ego, an organism that pulsates and grows like a malevolent planet in an apocalyptic 1950s comic-book. On Tuesday night he greeted the goals that saw off Barcelona-lite, aka Arsenal, with an elaborate repertoire of frowns, struts, preening and posturing, somewhere between a Leni Riefenstahl celebration of Olympian bermensch and an early Spandau Ballet video.

Ronaldo and his impermeable self-esteem will relish a Rome showdown with that lank-haired pretender Lionel Messi. The world only has room for one expressive genius. After that he might tire of the dull demands of a manager who regards Manchester United as a team rather than a backdrop for the splendour and glory that is Cristiano Ronaldo. At Old Trafford he is just a player, at the Bernabeu he will be worshipped. Especially if he rescues them from their present doldrums.

Given Ronaldo's barely-concealed disdain for England, that deal seems best for all concerned. Unless of course City offer to build a 100 foot sapphire-encrusted statue of him outside Eastlands, and let him pick the team while Mark Hughes peels his grapes. Then he might be tempted.

Tomorrow's match has elements of the contractual obligation about it for both sides. City's owners are keen to strip down their rudimentary chassis in the summer and build a gleaming new model, perhaps without the honest but uncharismatic Hughes at the steering-wheel. United want to tidy up the Premier League as soon as possible in order to concentrate their minds and resources on that date with Barcelona at the end of the month.

Typically they seem to have rediscovered their form at the most important part of the season. The way they disposed of a chaotic Arsenal on Tuesday was cruelly efficient. Ferguson didn't bother with complications in midfield. He chose his most assiduous workhorses, Anderson, Ji-Sung Park and Darren Fletcher to harass Arsenal's artistes while relying on the speed and invention of Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney to punish any errors in a defence prone to them. It worked a treat.

Ronaldo performed adeptly in the central role, but much of the team's recent success has been down to Rooney, a player who avoids Ronaldo's prima-donna tendencies while demonstrating a similar degree of talent. Shrewdly adapting to his now-regular position on the left, Rooney has shown he is a quick learner. In fact, for a man whose off-the-field antics suggest, shall we say, the lack of much of a cultural hinterland, Rooney looks like the most intelligent footballer in the English game at the moment. His positioning and passing recently have suggested he has the makings of a classic "No10". That might have been his future position for the national team, but for the lack of a decent striker to play in front of him.

Hughes would kill for a player within touching distance of Rooney and Ronaldo's ability and application.

Instead all the Ribery rumours are a reminder that the sort of player his bosses crave is extremely rare. When you are sticking 60 million price tags on B-list sorts like the French international, you wonder where the power-crazed billionaire megalomaniacs of today are going to find their next superstars.

Instead City will have to play for such an outdated prize as local pride this afternoon. Two Irishmen, Given and the consistently impressive Stephen Ireland, are not names to create waves on the global scene, but they are the beginnings of a side. If City's owners show the sort of patience that has been bestowed in the past on the likes of Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and David Moyes, Hughes has the character to develop a decent team. You suspect though that City's investors aren't thinking long-term sustainability, but rather instant gratification.