The changing attitudes towards the club...

When we were taken over by Sheik Mansour and associates last autumn we were all aware that the club and people's attitudes towards us had instantly changed forever. For years we'd had the respect of most fans, with a few obvious examples, many of whom claimed to admire us because of the unwavering support of our fans through extremely tricky periods. Whilst that is true, and not many clubs could have maintained capacity gates when playing in the second and third tiers of English football, i always thought them reasons were a bit of a cop-out. Fans of other clubs respected us, mainly, because we were crap, rarely a real threat to them, and always good for a laugh.

Thankfully we've now shed the 'joke club' tag that people had attached to us, as much as we'll always have the capacity to trip ourselves up, cups for cock-ups, etc, etc. Newcastle United seem to have inherited our title in that respect, if anything can go wrong, it probably will, if there's any chance at all of alarming mismanagement, it's most likely to happen at St. James Park, as much as they've started their first season outside of the top flight in years in very impressive form.

I'm sure we've all found ourselves in taxis or pubs when outside of Manchester, being asked 'Red or Blue?'. On giving the person in question what is indeed the correct and less offensive answer the reaction has always tended to be a positive one. This has, in all honesty, had quite a lot to do with the success of our cross city rivals, success breeds contempt, it's just a fact of life. Relatively early into our as yet trophyless 'new dawn', though, the attitudes of outsiders towards Manchester City Football Club have changed drastically.

The most obvious answer would be 'Couldn't really give a shit!', but i'm not sure that's actually how i feel. I do care what people think about the club i support, and whilst i wasn't really enamoured with their mocking fondness of us when we were a bit rubbish, i can't really see the new-found 'Moneybags Citeh ruining football' spiel as anything more than completely ridiculous, uneducated and desperate. Our crime, by the sounds of it, is wanting to sign good players and not be a bit shit.

I suppose people being envious of money is perfectly natural. In personal terms, we'd all love to be wealthy, that's no secret. Because the majority of us never will be we comfort ourselves in thinking those who are rich must be vulgar, spoilt and out of touch with the real world, all nonsense of course. The fact that we have wealthy backers, though, really shouldn't make us public enemy number one all of a sudden. I certainly never resented Chelsea on Abramovich took over, or the fact that United's modern successes are built on debt, or Leeds for putting together an exciting side on the drip some years ago.

There are some criticisms of the new City which, as a fan, i can take on the chin, even laugh about. The chasing of Kaka was ridiculous on an extraordinary level, a definite case of us trying to run before we could walk. Garry Cook, who i rate very highly and think is doing a tremendous job, came out of that particular affair looking like a bit of a balloon, he's admitted so himself. The public pursuit of John Terry, during which Mark Hughes indicated he'd spoken to the player, didn't show us in a great light, and we'd have had something to say about that were it another manager. The incidents against Arsenal last week, much as they've been overblown, didn't reflect well. These occasional unfortunate incidents aside, though, which happen at every club, i really don't see what we've done wrong.

General attitudes towards the club have changed massively. The friendliness from fans of other teams has pretty much disappeared, which is peculiar considering we've not actually done anything as yet. What's most disappointing, however, is that our attitudes as supporters seem to be changing with and probably as a result of them. We seem to have developed this siege mentality, a bit of an ego, and an air of attitude. Perhaps it just comes with the territory, i don't know, but i find it quite unpleasant on occasion.

The press probably do have a lot to do with it. Their often ill-advised garbage effects the views of the general public, and although a few journalists have laid off a little, the hatred of the club in certain quarters since the takeover is there for all to see. In the end you get a vicious circle - the papers slag the club, idiots read the bullshit, idiots slag club more, fans of club feel the need to get defensive, leading to this constant negative feeling around and about the club, at least outside of it.

The last ten days have seen us presented in an especially bad light in the media, perhaps we've not done ourselves favours here and there, and you get the sense that attitudes towards the club are becoming more and more negative, which is tremendously frustrating considering we play some terrific football. We need to rise above it, though, on the pitch, through the manager, and as supporters. Today, for instance, we're moaning about a bit of extra injury game when we lost a game because we defended like amateurs, it's as simple as that. I'd prefer our manager to come out and be humble, say we lost to a better team and we look forward to the return, praise those who played well and take it on the chin.

For years and years we've mocked the managers of the so-called Big Four for their arrogance, and their sides sometimes questionable tactics and attitudes. Take Arsenal for instance, the sorest of sore losers, or Ferguson, always toys out of the pram if he doesn't get his way. I don't want us to be like that. Ade deserves his ban for the van Persie incident, he deserves a word in his ear for the celebration, him getting pulled up for his conduct shouldn't be seen as some reffing agenda, and we shouldn't defend him for the sake of defending him. Yesterday the referee was well within his rights to play between one and two minutes extra on top of the four awarded previously. Let's let it lie, stop causing a fuss about nothing, we've not been hard done by in any way, shape or form.

If the idiot minority of other clubs fans want to hate us, let them. If they want to harp on with their ill-advised rubbish and clutching at straws because they're jealous we're going to be successful, then bollocks to 'em, we don't need to fight fire with fire, we don't have to. If we're occasionally on the end of bad officiating, then we should grit our teeth and get on with it rather than borrowing from the Ferguson, Benitez or Wenger book of whinges. If our players misbehave now and again, let's admit as much. If we sometimes lose games, let's do it with a bit of decorum, not go looking for people to blame.

Looking at the clubs who have been successful at the highest level in English football in the modern era, few if any have maintained that decorum, the class, the respect of the neutral. Perhaps the stakes are simply too high, or the money involved means more ego's, or maybe that sort of stuff is just simply no longer a part of football. I hope that we can really push on without making enemies of everyone, though. Football needn't be a case of pantomime villains. All we can do is try and keep our house in order as a club and our views as grounded and sensible as possible as fans. Hopefully those elsewhere will see that us having ambitions to break into the top four and lots of money really doesn't deserve widespread hate and every minor incident isn't really worthy of the headlines and bile. Of late i'm not sure we've been helping ourselves in either respect.