Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
Regarding style of play, you say it’s “total bollocks” that Tan insists on direct style of play, but the word used in the Trust e-mail is favours which is a bit different from that. Nevertheless, although I accept that Ole sides never played the sort of hoofball seen under other Tan choices, it’s quite funny to see Manchester United fans now repeating the very same things City fans used to say about him - seven years after he left us, I still have no clue what the plan was under Ole and I’d say his appointment was, in the main, down to his Manchester United connections.

You also seem to have forgotten about Russell Slade who I’d say definitely fitted the direct description and I must disagree with you about Neil Harris - he talked about trying to get us to play more football, but gave up on that in the end and I think it’s safe to say that Millwall fans would, by and large, definitely describe his sides as direct..

Therefore, I’d say that five out of seven, including the last three he has appointed, of the managerial appointments under Vincent Tan’s watch favoured direct football and of the two that didn’t, one lasted about.two months of actual playing time and the other about five and a half, so, being generous, you could say that City have had managers who didn’t want to play direct football for just one of the seasons Vincent Tan has been here for.

None of this proves our owner insists on the team playing direct football, but I’d say it definitely backs the notion that he favours it.
I'm replying to your post here Bob largely because I agree with every word you say and I think it disappointing some people prefer to scrape around desperately searching for anything which will.vindicate their faith in Tan. Surely that boat sailed long ago.

However the other reason is to tap up your powers of recollection and also someone like TLG might be able to help with this.

I might be wrong how I remember the way things played out but back in the heady days of peak rebrand with Tan promising a golden dawn of riches.

Tan said he would back Malky Mackay financially in our first promotion year and Malky duly spent money on the squad. However due to the fact we had no Premier quality players in the squad at the time and despite the fact we had a number of top end Championship players, we had an awful big task to get up to speed. Our football at the time was based on being tight at the back and scoring from set pieces.

Although Malky didn't spend a fortune Tan fell out with him and I seem to remember the bone of contention was that Malky and Moody had abused Tans latitude and had massively overspent the transfer budget. The issues with the racist texts etc became an issue later on.

What I'm a little hazy about is that I seem to remember Tan's stance being that Malky had been too free with a budget of £40 million which was intended for not only transfer fees but players' wages too!!! Even though this was some 8-9 years ago an impossible constraint given our massive need to strengthen.

I highlight this episode because if it is accurate then it shows Tan's lack of knowledge and also how his plan was to invest the minimum for maximum gain.