City tackle the Danish outfit in the first leg of their last 32 clash having been bolstered by the transfer window additions of Wayne Bridge, Craig Bellamy and Shay Given, plus Nigel de Jong, who is not eligible to play.
Having almost come a cropper in Denmark once earlier in the competition, when it required a last-minute own-goal to stave off elimination to Midtjylland, Blues boss Mark Hughes will be eager to ensure there are no slip ups.
But Hughes' opposite number, former Wimbledon player Stale Solbakken, is not impressed by the Eastlands revolution.
"The amounts of money that have been mentioned are incredible," Solbakken told Ekstra-Bladet.
"I think that such incredible sums will take part in destroying football.
"They are creating too big a mental distance between what we call reality and then Manchester City."
Although he did not mention the failed attempt to sign Brazilian superstar Kaka, Solbakken could have been referring to it with a stinging attack on how much difference the money being invested in City will actually make.
"The hardest part for City is that they, by tradition, are not a big football club and therefore all the money in the world does not make a difference for them," Solbakken said.
"They brought in Wayne Bridge even though he is only marginally better than what they had already and that says how hard it is to get the best players even though you have lots of money." Tweet
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Fair point about Bridge.
he looks like the Rat-catcher out of Chitty chitty bang bang..........
where is Soulboy these days............
So where was this manwhen Chelsea were doing it 4 years ago (mutu, crespo, veron), or the rags when they were doing it before them (veron, kleberson, blomqvist) people like him knock me sick with their obvious bias.
Yeah Yeah the end is night and its all our fault.
We`ve been hearing this constantly now since the end of August and suprise suprise the top 4 are still there as is the rest of football.
Water off a ducks back now for me, just bring it all on, it`ll be all the more sweeter when we do win something.
As for their manager........well its a good job it had in the article who he used to play for as I`ve never heard of him!
YAWN!!
Lets hope his ignorance about us extends to his pre match preparation.
Who's this Clown ?
Is this bloke real or an extra in a horror movie, get some sun lad you look like death warmed up....
sour grapes if you ask me
I imagine Mr Solbakken will be in for a very frosty welcome in the 2nd leg after making these untimely comments.MCFC not a big club? perhaps not any more but how big or small are Coppenhagen? However considering the present turmoil we are in at the present time Mr Solbakken has cunningly chosen the time to 'KICK ' City in the teeth just when they are on their knees but in football sometimes making such comments can bounce right back on you but we all have to question our teams ability and passion to realise such vengence,it would be nice however to witness CITY giving Copenhagen a good 'WALLOPING' YES I THINK Mr SOLBAKKEN IS IN FOR A ROUGH RIDE IN THE RETURN LEG.....
Football wont be killed, but the game we knew prior to the 80's was killed a long time ago by Sky and the rich clubs of that time like United, Blackburn and Chelsea in recent years.
Thanks for the team talk, matey!
Wow, straight from the mouth of a Legend (who?)
Ignore him, it's the 15min of fame syndrome.
sorry mate, who are you??
Once more it's City killing football but why aren't Chelsea ? They started it
Another one jumping on the let's bash City bandwagon. As I've never heard of this Dane before it hardly merits a comment but I wonder if he has an opinion on the £750 million allegedley spent by Abramovich at Chelsea or the £325 million spent on transfer fees by Tottenham in the last ten years?
Sour grapes you ask me....
The Rags, Chelski, Liverpool, Spuds, Real, Barca, Juve and so on.... havent been spendin £20m+ on players for years have they?????
No...its jus' City... City are ruining football.... Jus us!!
And YOU ARE!!! Ram it PIE FACE.
The name says it all "Stale" just liek his comments.
Yet another Johnny foreigner putting the boot into City, Manure, Chelski, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus & Milan have been throwing their money about for years yet nobody bats an eyelid, as soon as little old City get a few quid to spend everybody and his uncle is making stupid comments
CTID
Wow. It must be true if it's affecting the Danish super league.
Must go and wring my hands in despair now.
Don't be a bum,get some sun! your lot matey could only beat Spanish non league part timers Mazarron CF 2-0 last week, so stick the cork in we are coming for you!!!!!!
Thanks for geeing our lads up!
All aboard for Istanbul, the express leaves soon!
yes it is a fair point that he makes re Bridge, BUT! when the mighty two brought in, LEE, BELL, SUMERBEE, COLEMAN, etc etc non of them at that time were a patch on Johnny Crossan but they were blended into the finest team we have ever had here at City, and my friends that is what the current process is, the blender is still on, only our patience will let us see the finished product.
Onwards and Upwards, TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.
This argument that *money doesn't buy success*. Show me a club that hasn't had a significant amount of investment and then not improved on its position following the investment. Obviously, what they then did once they became more successful is open to a debate about good/bad management, but look at:
Blackburn. Newcastle. Chelsea. Derby. Wigan. Wolves. Aston Villa. Sunderland. Swansea City. Fulham. Middlesbrough. Reading. Cardiff City. Leeds United.
My point is that money does buy success and improvement, its knowing what to do once you are there that is the crux. This is why it is essential that the club grows at a steady rate, across all areas of the club, and that foundations are put in place to make success sustainable once it is achieved. Now for many of those I mentioned, they completely mis-managed themselves once success was achieved (i.e. Leeds) and others simply reached ther maximum potential any investment could bring based on the infrastructure of those clubs (i.e. Boro, Wigan). My point is that with this investment, City will improve on where they have been, for it to be maintained, it has to be managed in the right way, and all the indications are, from what I have seen and heard (based on FACTS), that City are acting responsibly with the wealth they have. So, in summary, this clown's comments are absolute dogsheeee-ite.
Lets look at it this way.
Say City had bought all the best players for there positions, twice over and a few more to cover. So we'd have a squad of maybe 30 players not including the youth team lads coming through that cost nothing.
There are thousands of players in the world all trying to get to the top and win football matches and trophies, (Quick thought, World Cup Teams)
Enough players for the rest of the football clubs in Europe to more than compete with City, City's money is just not an issue, City are not going to buy much more than a normal squad of players.
The City killing football is a very worn out point now and not really worthy of listening to, as the arguement simply does not hold water in the real world. In truth the money that City are spending is just going to trickle down through football and is just as likely in the longer term going to benefit football.
The Killing football excuse is a get out for club's that think they may struggle to beat City or it's being used to make them look like the underdog, a pathetic reverse psychology of some sort I think or even worse a pathetic dig at opponent, a sort of elbow in the face before the game starts sort of thing.
One thing, it gives us an insight into the nature of their manager, just the fact that he has clearly swallowed all the negative media coverage about City of late proves that.