Forever Blue With Ian Cheeseman

Manchester City are now 3/1 on favourites to win the Premier League this season and we’re not quite half way through this strange campaign yet.

They deserve to be favourites. They are playing possession football of the very highest quality and I believe that’s the most effective way to play during the absence of supporters in stadiums. 

Manchester United and Liverpool played out an all too predictable dull, goalless draw on Sunday afternoon. I don’t often predict score lines of football matches, but during Sports Talk on Tameside Radio, which is every Friday evening from 7pm, I told all those who cared to listen that’s what the score would be. 

City then produced a controlled performance against one of their bogey teams, Crystal Palace, to show who the real force is in English football. This more measured, patient style of playing seems to be a new tactic from Pep Guardiola which many think is designed to be more successful in the Champions League. It’s too early to tell, just yet, whether that will be the case but I certainly believe it will prevail this season in the Premier League. 

United and Liverpool have lost kick up the backside, when things aren’t going well, from their fans and while I’m not suggesting City’s fans are any less vociferous, I don’t think Pep’s players need that loud vocal support to play the more measured football that is becoming more and more awkward for opponents to deal with this season. 

More generally, I reported on Manchester City Women against Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon and being inside the stadium I was able to fully compare their goal celebrations, especially as the Blues won 7-0. There’s been a lot of talk this week about whether players should hug and make physical contact with each other in the immediate aftermath of the ball hitting the back of the net. 

I tweeted a couple of pictures of the virtual group hugs and goal celebrations at the CFA during that game and while most people who replied were supportive, there were a couple who said things like, “what’s the point of not hugging when they are in a bubble anyway?” I understood the point they were making but I also think that during the peak of this pandemic it sends out the wrong message symbolically and psychologically when they make physical contact. 

One of the guests on my Manchester City podcast, Forever Blue, which we recorded immediately after the win against Crystal Palace, probably made the point far better than me. Louisa has found it difficult during these endless lockdowns. She has not been able to simply hug people. She lives on her own and hasn’t had physical contact with her much loved Mum for months. She’s a big City fan so in normal times she’d have been hugging everyone within range of her at the Etihad Stadium when John Stones scored his goals on Sunday, but watching the players hug, if only half-heartedly, with skipper Fernandinho trying to urge social distancing, was hard for her. I understand and empathise. 

I don’t suppose many footballers will read this, but to those that do, please understand the privilege you have right now and please respect the affect over physical goal celebrations can have on some of the people watching on TV. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before we can all release that suppressed emotion, that we all have. I know that hugging will never feel better when we can all do it again, together, so for now, try to resist the temptation; just score and run back to the half way line, like my hero Colin Bell used to do.