the days of imagining manchester city finishing in the top half of the table this season, they're gone as well. Keegan OUT.

Keegan is saying what I have been saying for a while. The domestic game is dying - we are having a "good" season by our standards yet the football we are watching is poor. Teams are coming to our ground of all places with little or no ambition of winning a football match - the ethos is not to lose. Fans are already deserting the game - it will get steadily worse.

Spot on Kev, the other teams don't have a chance especially if you assemble a squad with only 1 recognised Premier league striker in it like you have! Doh!

The popularity of footy amongst the good people of Mcr is declining thanks to the contemptuous attitude of this manager.

Kev is right. Football in general is in terminal decline. It's just that most people haven't cottoned on yet.

I am a fan of Kev's as I think he is a great ambassador for City and footbal in general. He does his best with minimal resources and I doubt that given the current squad any one could do much better. He is obviously from the old school and remembers when Division 1 (as we used to call it) could potentially be won by any of the teams who competed. That will never happen now and Kev obviously feels a pang of regret.

It is obvious that there is a malaise in football generally and especially in the premiership. No one who has been to Eastlands and is old enough to compare it with Maine Road in the seventies, eighties and early nineties can fail to have noticed the huge difference in atmosphere despite the larger average attendances. I put this down to the Zoe Ball factor by which I mean the popularising of "soccer" in the nineties which was started by Nick Hornby and carried on by Baddiel & Skinner, Soccer AM and the rest of the beautiful people for whom football was suddenly hugely relevant. This caused a huge explosion in football's exposure in the media and on telly. Suddenly you couldn't switch on the box without seeing Angus Deaton or some young 'ladette' eulogising about the game. The result was a hike in TV money, footballers wages going through the roof and ticket prices rocketing (I paid B#8 for the last game in the old Kippax in 1994). The clubs couldn't wait to cash in.

However the boot, metaphorically, is now on the other foot and the trendies are no longer obsessed. Angus is long gone and Zoe has got ugly. The true fans who never went away are left with the remnants of the bandwagon - the exhorbitant prices, overpaid prima donnas, rip off merchandise, stupid Monday fixtures - no wonder they are leaving in their droves. Ever dwindling attendances are leading to crappier atmosphere (if there were 43,050 there last night then I'm a monkey's uncle) and the whole thing is going to unravel soon.

It's sad but true ,KK seems to have lost his Passion for the Game .
Even this latest Comment is defeatist ."we can never win ,so why should we bother trying ".
In his Newcastle days ,he would never have selected the starting 11 we saw last Night .
Not for a Home Derby .
Even then ,the chance was still there at half time .The old KK would have brought on BWP and Croft for Reyna and Sommeil and tried to batter Bolton .He might have won it
3-1 or lost 3-4 either way you would have cheered his ambition and spirit of adventure.
He would not have settled for
0-1 and left only Bolton cheering .

So big man, what's wrong with challenging the likes of Bolton, Boro and Charlton to give us a sniff of away days in the sun!? This fella is either a defeatist or an unrealistic optimist: Which one?

Its true what K K has said the top clubs get richer, and other clubs can,t compete.
But Everton, Boro, and Bolton are not giving up on Europe this season.
Because City have failed this season, does not mean failiure
in the future, we have young stars that can save the club millions if they stay.
We now need a manager who will not talk of failiure.

Frank the poularity of fooball id decling, speak for your self. You could never sustain that rented ground and never had a hope in Hell of filling it week in week out. I myself can`t understand why, when its close to YOUR REAL FANBASE, STOCKPORT!

Absolute tripe. The only thing that's killing off interest in the game is watching a team bereft of the basic footballing qualities like pass and move and a manager bereft of ideas or enthusiasm. My patience has run out. Dinosaurs like KK have had their day. No to Allardyce, no to Strachan. Let's have a young foreign coach with fresh ideas and a modicom of coaching skills.

Vincent, Spot on mate. Spot on.

For my part, the game hasn't been the same since the days of standing and pay-at-the-gate games. There were many days when I had a free Sateurday, the weather looked good and a few of us squeezed into a Reliant Robin and we limped along to anywhere within 100 miles, all at the drop of the hat. And we used to take a HUGE fan base with us. None of this 'great' support when we sell our 3000 ticket allocation [albeit overpriced tickets]. At places other than Merseyside and OT, we often outnumbered the home support, and it made for a really good day out. Today it's all too tepid. You can't break wind without being threatened with a banning order! Well, not quite, but I'm sure you will understand. The game is too tame and the passion has gone. Crowds are up because the game has been made family friendly which has to be good, but for me the game is no longer about two tribes, it's all about two 'products', and I'm getting bored stiff with it all.

utter nonsense again from our manager,personally all it does is tell me he is trying to divert the attention away from YET another pitiful performance from the team he has built so carelessly. City are not in the elite group of super powers as he puts it because he has a set of players who are wimps,has beens and ones simply not good enough,add to this he is clueless when it comes to changing his gameplan when the opposition change theirs.Analysing last nights poor show (its getting a habit now) James wasn't communicating much with his defenders (is he interested?)Mills is attrocious (nothing else to say about him) Distin lacks pace and cant get distance on his defensive heading.Sommeil isn't as good as Richard Edghill.Reyna is a wimp because he was pulling out of tackles he was 60-40 favourite of winning and only made one forward pass all the game besides losing possession on numerous occasions.Willo Flood sadly looked exposed only because the so called senior players around him didn't look after him,he needs to be introduced to a team with players around him who are not old and past it.Lusampa lacks pace cant pass the ball and is too weak in the tackle,furthermore he too gets caught in possession far too often and really in my opinion he clearly isn't good enough although STRANGELY enough Keegan does.Mcnanaman? oh deary deary me NO COMMENT.and Fowler well that sitter,how many of them has he missed now? forget his recent purple patch and how many Premiership goals he has scored the plain facts are HE IS A HAS BEEN like Bosvelt,there were parts of the game last night where his body language told you he's not really bothered and at one particular moment he had his hands on his knees gasping for air and his legs looked like jelly. Iam writing about so called Premiership footballers and some of our so called stars were of that standard in the past but not any more and as a consequence the team and the club in general are in rapid decline.However can any city fan convince me Sibieski is Premiership material? out of all this mediocrity the only city player who shown any passion or committment was Richard Dunne and without SWP in the side I doubt we will win another match,it just isn't good enough and at the end of the day the blame must lie at Keegans feet no one elses,what a sorry state we are in!

I think that football is on the decline and it's down to the people involved in it, for years FIFA has wanted to see more attacking football and has in effect ruined football by changing rules that dont need changing and almost eradicated the physical side of the game. Players have to much say in what goes in nowadays if they dont like being dropped for "lack of confidence" or bad form as i prefer to say they go to the press cry on sky sports and get a contract somewhere else. Clubs wasted TV money and are all now struggling financially. Agents get paid for unsettling players. The only constant in football is us fools who pay for our season tickets each year or pay per match but we don't have a say in how anything is run and if i hear one more so called expert say that "unless you've played the game at the highest level" i will pay Joe Royle back mine and everybody elses money.

I agree with Mr Wiskas, yes and the players get paid too much its getting out of control.

Should there be a ceiling on transfers ?, players wages ?, only then would the pitch be level for all clubs.
Exciting football would be back with ALL clubs competing not just a few.

SAL, don't be silly son. Everyone knows that the popularity of football is on the decline. Even the PLCs consumer base must be down a few million now that the title is going to Stamford Bridge. P.S. Care to tell us where in MANCHESTER we can find OLDHAM?

the only way that any team outside chelsea, arsenal & trafford rangers is capable of winning or finishing in the top 3 is to introduce a salery cap (world wide). this though will never happen. the only other way is to get bill gates supporting the blues.

I personally don't think football is in decline!!! But hopefully it will decline a little bit and get rid of people who are just never happy and constantly whinge!!! ie Mr Knott!!!!

Nevermind the premiership! I fear for my beloved team under this man's management

Football always goes through phases. Mid 60's was poor with the advent of 4-3-3 and disappearance of wingers but we saw some great football starting in 1968 for a few years. Late 70's and most of the 80's was also relatively poor. Mid 90's we started to see exciting football again and crowds went up leading to an influx of money but we are now starting to see a decline as winning 1-0 is more important than entertaining. No one was more synonymous with entertainment than KK but now points mean prizes so even he has to be cautious. Teams have dominated even when there was a much more level playing field from the money point of view. If football entertains it will pull in the crowds.

I still understand from a very good source that there will be fresh investment coming into city this summer. I have no idea who is involved, but do understand that Wardle is prepared to sell his interest to somebody who has more cash to invest in the club. These talks are at a fairly advanced stage and a deal looks more likely than not in the summer. So this deal will most likely reolve many questions around KK's future, Martin O, SWP and fresh players coming in/deadwood going out...

Ted Knott you really are a funny bloke. You moan because Keegan doesn't play Flood and then you moan when he is selected. What's all this dross about being left exposed by senior players? Why don't you concede that he isn't ready for it yet and is completely out of his depth at this level. Most of us have accepted it.

I've had a City season ticket for 25 years and for the first time ever I've not renewed it before the early discount deadline. Nor have I renewed them for my two sons. Keegan is right about football not being as it was. However, he himself is too blame for the malaise the club finds itself in. We've all experienced the ups and downs (mainly downs) but it's always been entertaining - you'd always have a laugh. This season though, I've just boring, no atmosphere, no passion and no flair (SWP excepted). As for Keegan, well he doesn't give a damn. If any player had turned round with two years left on his contract and said he didn't want to stay at City he would be sold - it should be no different for a manager. Keegan doesn't care, so why should we? I will not be renewing my season ticket until Keegan goes and someone with passion takes over.

Another attempt to divert attention from Keegan's own failures. The truth is that many clubs with much less money are doing better than we are and that can only be the responsibility of the manager. Time to move on please.

Ted, Can we book you for our christmas party cos you really are a bundle of laughs!
Lighten up mate, supporting City's not meant to be easy.