Portsmouth

I imagine we will be going into today’s game against Portsmouth as strong favourites not only to win but to win handsomely. Of course as a city fan I don’t take anything for granted but we must fancy our chances against a group of players who must be totally demoralised because of events off the field and out of their control.

I have an enormous amount of sympathy for Portsmouth and their fans, I also realise that only because of a generous slice of fortune we could have been in a similar situation ourselves today. There was general jubilation when Thaksin Shinwatra took over City, he brought in an experienced manager to replace Stuart Pearce and released funds for quality players with a promise of more money being available. The season started well then started to peeter out – nothing new at City, but our chairman was attracting world-wide criticism and international arrest warrants for his activities in his native Thailand, political banners were appearing at strategic parts of the stadium during televised matches. This made me uncomfortable but more alarming was the sale of Vedran Corluka and the attempted disposal of Stephen Ireland without the manager’s permission that set a lot of alarm bells ringing.

I honestly believe that Thaksin was about to asset- strip the club to fund his political objectives as his own fortune had been impounded in the Far East – I don’t know who suggested that Keith Harris should be charged with selling the club, but that decision was the most monumental taken in the clubs history. When we read about Portsmouth we should bear in mind that but for the grace of God, we could have been in their situation today.