Footie Blog: Manchester City's 'toothless' Tigers

Halfway through the Barclays Premier League season, the 'trying-to-be Mighty' Manchester City FC's strength were no where to be seen. The Manchester club was bought over by Abu Dhabi-based Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Limited before the season started from ex Thailand premier, Thaksin Shinawatra. From then onwards, the former middle-league club turned from having a quiet transfer season last August to inflicting scare among big clubs including AC Milan and Manchester United with Man City trying to snatch away their assets due to the availability of big money spending power.

The Citizens made immediate transfer interests on the world's top players such as David Villa (Valencia), Cristiano Ronaldo (Man Utd), Kaka (AC Milan), Thiery Henry (Barcelona), Cesc Fabregas (Arsenal), Fernando Torres (Liverpool) and so on. In an attempt to disrupt Man Utd and Chelsea's transfer season, they barged themselves with transfer bids for Dimitar Berbatov and Robinho. It paid off in the end as Robinho signed for them instead of heading for Chelsea.

But for now, Man City is stranded in the bottom-half/middle-half of the league table which cancelled off speculation that the Citizens is ready to break into the top 4 league placing. Nope. They are far from challenging the Premier League contenders. The results lately had given us the idea that they are facing quite a dilemma themselves. In contrast, a series of draws and losses against Blackburn, West Brom, Everton and Fulham was not justifying the spending and the vision they have. Furthermore, the 3-0 loss against Nottingham Forest, a struggling Coca-cola Championship team, in the FA Cup was just an embarrassment.

This is a perfect example on why money are not a quick resolution and for being a ' rising tiger' in the footballing world, they are almost 'toothless' at the moment. As the January transfer season is open, they are once again being the most active ones. Speculations of Roque Santa Cruz, Ronaldo and Michael Owen joining the club are still on. This left me to wonder on how much money they will need to spend to carry themselves back in action in the league. They were in 9th place last season. Will they surpass that performance? I believe all of us are not quite convince yet. They will need to do a lot more to grow some 'teeth'.