What Was The Point ?

Great seeing a couple of City players in the full England squad and with all the media hype about the Barton/Gerrard/Lampard thing, it was all a bit of an anti-climax in the end.

However, having said that, what was the point of Joey really being there in the end, as he was only on the pitch for 11 minutes; what sort of opportunity was that?

As soon as I saw the teamsheet I was tempted to run down the bookies and stick a few quid on an away win. The Neville brothers at full back - what was all that about? What could McClaren possibly learn from that has-been brotherly pairing? What made it even worse was that Micah and Gareth Barry (a naturally left sided player) were left on the bench - what's going on?

Lamps and Stevie G failed as a midfield unit yet again, leaving the onlooking Barton to freeze on the bench in complete bewilderment as to what he was doing there. SWP flattered to deceive again and just always looks like he's trying too hard all the time to prove he was right to join Chelsea, which we all know he wasn't.

At best, the England performance was lacklustre and at worst pathetic. At least when Micah came on we looked more threatening with his pace and power. Joey was given all of eleven minutes in a hopeless cause and looked comfortable without really getting into the game. We did however see one of his trademark through-the-back tackles and was a bit lucky to get away with it.

On a positive note, nice to see Stevie Ireland grab a late winner. He's played well since the start of the year and deserves a decent run in the City team and a new contract.

What then about England? Last night confirmed yet again it was a case of wrong team, wrong formation, wrong manager.

Israel must be shaking in their boots !

Barton's Clause For Concern

As this year's January transfer window draws to a nervous conclusion, it has once again proved to be an underwhelming month of rumour and general inactivity. Nothing much ever seems to happen in this mid-season transfer window apart from unhelpful speculation and general unsettling of players, managers and fans. Personally, I think it's time to rethink the whole transfer window thing.

Without tempting fate, it now looks like our "crown jewels" of Barton and Richards will stay for a while longer, having learned from SWP's badly advised move to the greener grass of Stamford Bridge, where he now commands a regular place on the bench. It looks like both have realised their chances of international honours are greatly improved by staying at Eastlands as bigger fish in an albeit smaller pond, but nevertheless will be playing week in, week out and catching the eye of the England selectors.

The down side from all this, is that it's now public knowledge that Joey has a clause in his contract whereby an offer of £5.5m for his services allows another club to talk to him. Although it would now appear that he'll stay this time around, he'll be viewed as fair game in the summer when clubs are more serious about new signings.

It seems that such clauses are now common practice, but why did City allow such a low trigger value? What were City's commercial people thinking about when with Joey's potential, they agreed to such a derisory valuation? If City are now considering waving a new contract in front of Joey, they need to ensure that any future financial thresholds are set much higher; we just can't afford to give our best players away on the cheap.

But with every dark cloud comes a silver lining..... if reports are to be believed, it now looks like Joey has parted company with agent, Willie McKay.... allegedly !