Wilkins says City not title contenders & Hughton asks Carroll to raise his game
War of words has always been a big part of English Premier League, Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger have been experts at it for decades. The 2 were managers of teams who had competed against each other for almost a decade for
the league title before Chelsea came calling.
Just as Chelsea were bought by Roman Abramovic and he pumped in millions to lead his team to back to back Premier League trophies. Manchester City are trying to do the same. The club was bought by the Abu Dhabi based business group
and since then they have been splashing the cash left, right and centre. City spent 130 million pounds this summer and many have tipped them to be serious title contenders.
However not everyone seems to agree, Ray Wilkins the assistant manager of Chelsea has questioned the credentials of City as far as the title challenge is concerned.
Manchester City currently lie in 2nd place in the league table, and trail Chelsea by just 4 points. City is also the only team to beat Chelsea this season as they won at home 1-0.
Despite the good start to the season by City, Wilkins believes that it will be some time before City can actually become serious title contenders. He added that it will be the same old 3 title contenders for a while, and those
teams including Chelsea have spent a long time in getting where they are. Wilkins went on to say that spending money only does not guarantee success, he admitted that they do have some fantastic players but still does not ensure them the title.
Wilkins said: "It will always be Manchester United, it will always be Arsenal.
"They will always be there or thereabouts. Yes, City, as fabulous a group of footballers as they have, has got to gel as a unit”.
The Chelsea assistant manager said that it has all been done before, when a club buys bunch of superstars from all across Europe; Wilkins referred to Real Madrid few years back when they spent millions and brought together the
biggest stars in the world. Still Barcelona ended up winning the league.
Wilkins did compliment Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini; he said that Mancini is probably the right man to do the job. He added that Mancini had experience of working with some of the best in the world, and he would need
some time before he can actually start getting what he wants from his team.
Meanwhile Newcastle manager Chris Hughton has sent out a warning to his front man Andy Carroll that despite his great start to the season, he will need to raise his game to keep a place in the starting XI.
The homegrown striker was in the headlines early in the season, when he scored a fantastic hat trick against Aston Villa in a 6-0 win. Soon he was hyped up to be the next big thing to come out of England and the latest striker
to be added to Fabio Capello’s England team.
Carroll did follow up the hat trick with another crucial goal that earned his team one point against the Wolves. Since then Carroll has not been able to impress much. In the match against Manchester City he was not given a start
and instead of him it was Shola Ameobi who got the nod following a good performance in Carling Cup where they beat Chelsea.
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