18-07-2007 Premiership Betting Preview for 2007/08 Season - Manchester City - from Pinnacle Sports

Manchester City season ticket holders will be hoping for a better return on their investment for the forthcoming campaign than last season, where the Citizens scored just ten goals in nineteen home games. Their bitter rivals, Manchester United scored 36 more goals at Old Trafford on their way to the Premiership, putting City’s goalscoring shortcomings into stark perspective. PinnacleSports.com's Premiership betting market reflects this reality, quoting Man City at 207.09 to emulate their city neighbours in 2007/08.

Turbulent Season in Store for Citizens
Judging by the flurry of activity in the boardroom, it promises to be a more a exciting time at Eastlands, but that won’t necessarily equate to good results. The club has a new owner, in exiled, former Thai Primer Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who paid £81.6million for the club. Conditional on that deal was the appointment of former England manager, Sven Goran Eriksson. This constitutes a revolution at the club, rather than a transition, and the repercussions could take some time to die down.

Both men bring considerable personal baggage; Shinawatra is wanted back in Thailand on corruption charges, while Eriksson spent more time on the front pages of the British pages as the back pages during his time as coach of the national time. The Swedish coach has also been out of club football since 2001, and has never managed in the Premiership. The club have also suffered from the negative press surrounding Joey Barton who despite being the Laser Blues best player, was swiftly sold after a training ground scuffle with team mate, Oliver Dabo, that led to assault charges.

Against this distracting backdrop Eriksson must fashion considerable improvement from a team that flirted with relegation and lacked a cutting edge. Focusing on that problem, Sven has spent £8.8million on Italian striker, Rolando Bianchi, signed from Reggina. Bianchi may not be a household name, but he did score 18 goals in Serie A last season, which is a notoriously hard league for strikers. There will be immediate question marks over the ability of Bianchi to make it in the Premiership based on the poor record of Italians, and ex-Serie A players in English football.

Fellow Italian, Bernardo Corradi, was signed a year ago and hardly covered himself in glory. He was sent off on his debut and scored just three times in 25 appearances. The loss of Barton will also be felt as he was the driving force in midfield. At least City were defensively sound at home, otherwise their woeful scoring record would have resulted in many more home defeats.

Though Shinawatra has promised to transform Manchester City into a Champions League contender, the reality is that he has bought a regressive club in need of almost total transformation, and that won’t happen in one season, despite the reputation, new manager Sven Goran Eriksson, brings with him.

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