Well – A win, a draw, and a loss. Seem almost typical… City typical. A typical start to the City season.
But those days seem to be over now. The air of “How could we lose?” confuses me at times. As a matter of fact if you want a true litmus test for whether or not someone has been a City fan for a while — watch their expression after a loss, to say… ohh… Sunderland. If their expression is one of bewilderment, sadness, and downright shame than you know that person has not been witness to what is politely referred to as “Typical City”.
I felt it on Sunday – I was excited for the replay – but my City DNA wouldn’t allow me to say “We will crush Sunderland” – too many things were working against us… a mid week game, away at City of Lights and Darren F’ing Bent. I have to admit I am a bit more excited and optimistic since our new owners landed on Eastlands and started laying golden eggs. But, I’ve always been excited (not necessarily optimistic) for every game. And when we lost on Sunday… it sucked. It always sucks to lose… but for me… losing is just built in… especially losing late on a bogus PK to a team rated much worse than we… It’s party of being a City fan… it’s a part of being a City fan that I don’t want to lose.
I have no desire for these current expectations.
I have no desire to shield off the haters that don’t know the difference between City fans that know and have lived disappointment and those that just bought a Tevez jersey and possibly seem to remember him playing for United…
I have no desire to run into new City fans that can’t understand how we just lost to Sunderland.
With that said — things are definitely looking up at Eastlands. Even with the loss – they looked pretty good… not Chelsea good… but when Mancini figures out how to use Milner, Silva, AJ, Yaya, Balo, and Ade properly… they’ll score tons of goals. It won’t even be close — you can see it when they play. You can see that they haven’t figured it out yet… but that it’s coming. It’s coming like a giant storm towards any team we happen to meet after October… the Chelsea game will be our first big test in Late September. It’s at home… and I’m sure their pissed from our double over them last year.
So, as City start their season — the only surprise from new fans seems to be that we haven’t won every game 6-0.
The only surprise from rival fans is that we managed to show up and play with integrity, look like a team, and not trip all over the 24k golden shoes the owner has purchased for all fans and players.
And for me… well… a win, a loss, and a draw… seems like a pretty typical City start to the season.
See you all down the pub!
