In Defence Of Corradi ...Somebody Has to !

Poor old Bernardo has copped loads of flak in the media all season, but especially in the last few days. He seems to have taken over from Joey as public enemy number one, but as nobody else has stuck up for him, I thought I'd take on the challenge.

Corradi himself has also gone public with criticism of his manager, Stuart Pearce and clearly is not enjoying life at Eastlands.

There is normally a swift parting of the ways when a player publicly slags his manager off, so it is certain that Corradi's time in the blue of City will not last much longer.

City's lack of fire power this season has been a frequent source of ridicule from the rest of the football world and rightly so. It's embarrassing that with an array of international strikers in our squad, we have so far only managed a pathetic 22 league goals in 29 matches.

But, is it fair that Corradi seems to be taking the bulk of the blame for City's desperate form in front of goal; I think Bernardo is getting a rough deal here, as the situation is not that black and white.

True, Corradi has been disappointing in terms of goal scored, but whenever I've seen him play, he's always given 100% which is more than Samaras, for example. Corradi's failure has been more to do with lack of technique and application rather than just coasting around or hiding on the pitch like some sort of Greek tragedy (geddit ?).

Furthermore, any striker is only as good as the quality of supply he gets from the midfield. This has been a real problem for City in the last few seasons and with a complete lack of decent wingers to fire in crosses to the strikers, it's no wonder that Corradi ( & Samaras for that matter) have looked completely inept in front of goal. For Christ's sake, we have the tallest strike partnership in the Premiership and we can't cross a decent ball into them !!

Corradi may have stood a better chance is he'd have been picked in his proper postion as a central striker ( not drifting out to the right and left hunting for the ball) and if Pearce had picked a team and formation that played to his obvious physical strengths; ditto for Samaras, but I'm less forgiving in his case because unlike Corradi, Samaras just hasn't looked interested all season.

So, we're now left with an almost certain parting of the ways as Corradi looks to head home to Italy and who can blame him. This also means City and more specifically Pearce will kiss goodbye to another £2 million with the £6m spend of Samaras looking like it will also disappear into the sunset without any proper return unless something dramatically changes.

It makes me really nervous when I read that Pearce is looking for investment. Sure, more money would be great, but City haven't bought a really decent outfield player that has worked out since the days of Rosler, Kinkladze or Bernarbia. There are probably others that I can't recall off the top of my head, but the point is, it was a long time ago and my confidence in the current management making shrewd transfer investments is not high.

So, it will soon be arrivederci Bernardo ! In the end you tried hard but just weren't good enough, but I think you were also also a victim of the current management culture within the club and that wasn't entirely your fault.