Well, this week we’ve had two evaluations of Manchester City from a City supporters and I thought both of them were quite fair-minded. The first was a realistic view of the club and team’s potential, while the second was a little more gung-ho but still fairly cautious.

As a born and bred Manchester United supporter I find it a little bit difficult to view our blue neighbours in an unbiased manner and I reckon that will come across in my own views of Manchester City’s potential and probable performance this season. I am going to try, however, to at least forget my own allegiance and assess them as a neutral…

The first thing I’ll say is that given the amount of money City have spent, some of it well, some of it not so well, they HAVE to be focussed on winning the title. I don’t believe that Champions League qualification is enough for a club that spends well over £200 million – plus wages. It wasn’t for Chelsea and it shouldn’t be for City.

So right off the bat let me say this – they will NOT win the title this season. As much talent as they have in that bloated squad, they are still not good enough to challenge Chelsea or Manchester United and it remains to be seen iif they are good enough to finish ahead of Arsenal.

That said, there is no doubt at all that City have taken huge strides in the right direction. While the 0-0 draw with Spurs showed that this team needs time to gel and that they haven’t quite got the mix right on the pitch, the 3-0 destruction of an ailing Liverpool was a sign of what they are capable of doing.

Consistency is always key to challenging for the Premier League title. Chelsea and Manchester United, through experience as much as talent, have it. Arsenal, through inexperience as much as lack of talent, have lacked it in recent seasons. City have never had it, at least since the Premier League was created.

They have addressed the talent, no-one can argue against that, but consistency and real belief is not there – yet. City will still travel to a far-flung football outpost like newly promoted Newcastle and drop silly points in my opinion. If anything, it’s against the top three they will show their improvement, taking points you wouldn’t normally expect them to.

I’ll get to where I DO think they will finish later. Right now I want to look at the signings they’ve made over the summer and the one area I think is their biggest weak link.

The players City have signed that I think will do a very good job for them are Yaya Touré, David Silva and Jerome Boateng. Touré already has a wealth of experience at the very top of the game and should find it relatively easy to settle into the hustle and bustle of the Premier League. He looks a little below fitness at the moment, but that will come with games and it seems Roberto Mancini is going to give him those.

Silva will find it much harder to settle I think. His style of play will have to adjust to be a bit more robust (hey, that rhymes!) but if or when he manages to do so, he’ll shine. The problem he has at the moment is that Mancini doesn’t seem keen to throw him in from the start.

Boateng is more one for the future I imagine, not to mention injured, but he does look a talent. A very good long term investment for City.

I also have high hopes for Aleksandar Kolarov at left back as well actually. This guy is tough and skillful and he is one player I wouldn’t mind having at Old Trafford, though only as back up for the outstanding Evra, of course! It’s a shame he’s injured at the moment, I’d like to see more of him.

Those signings I just don’t get are Mario Balotelli and James Milner. The former is supremely talented, no question, but who needs that sort of disruptive influence knocking around the dressing room? And as for Milner, as a big fish in a comparatively small pond in Aston Villa he was good. At City, amongst the likes of De Jong, Touré et al, I just don’t think his somewhat limited skills will make much of an impact. I’ve been wrong before and his start so far has been good but over the course of a season I just don’t get it. I certainly don’t get the price they paid – it’s ridiculous and purely down to the fact he’s English. For Villa, it was a dream deal, especially picking up Stephen Ireland in the process.

Back to Balotelli though – can Roberto Mancini, who does know him well, get him focussed less on himself and more on his game and his club? I have my doubts. And it’s here we find City’s weakest link – the manager. For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, Mancini does not strike me as a top class manager. When Chelsea spent millions they grabbed Jose Mourinho and he had the capability to mould a bunch of mercenaries into a team, a real, proper team. I don’t see that in Mancini or in City.

Like Hughes before him, I don’t think Mancini will see out the season at City unless he’s in the top two by Christmas and that, as I’ve said, is beyond them for now. Sheikh Mansour, who would have been pleased when he paid his first visit to the City of Manchester stadium this past Monday, is clearly not a man blessed with patience, or Hughes would still be there. Top four is the bear minimum, top two MUST be the target.

Mancini will find the City hot seat that much hotter if he fails to be challenging for it come January. Then he’ll be out in the cold.

So where do I think City will finish this season? Well, and here’s where my bias does come out, I can’t see them finishing higher than fourth. The thing about City is that they ALWAYS endeavour to scupper whatever plans they have. Last season, with a Champions League spot relatively firmly in their grasp they managed to mess it up and hand it to Spurs by losing to their rivals.

Even if, by some miracle, they are in with a shout of the title come January they will find a way to throw it all away and when they do it will be in such spectacular fashion that they drop to fourth, possibly even fifth if Spurs manage to retain the form they showed last year or the likes of Everton or Villa mount a challenge for the CL spot.

That is the way of City and, though none of their supporters will openly admit it, it has always been that way. In private the fans all know it. They have every right to be excited at the moment, and hopeful too, this is their best chance and it’s a damn good one. But it’s City and at the back of their minds they will have that fear that, once again, City will find a way to throw it all away.

Will the banner at Old Trafford tick over to 35 years? That remains to be seen. A Cup would be enough to banish that constant reminder for good. And a Cup is well within their grasp. Not the League Cup, unless they really focus on it which they won’t. But the FA Cup? Yes, definitely a possibility. And for City, despite the understandable expectation for the League, it would be a major achievement.

That’s this season. In the next three to four years they damn well should win the League with the amount of investment that’s gone in over at Eastlands and the time to allow those superstars to become a team. I even, regrettably, expect it. IF they find the manager with the right credentials that is…

Manchester City have spent a fortune assembling a squad that offers great hope and dangerous expectation. City fan Matt Brooks gives Sporting Fare his views on the coming season.

The expectations game is tricky in football at the best of times. When looking ahead at the beginning of the new season, first you look back at the previous year, then you apply any changes over the summer and you use this to try to generate an idea of what a given club should be looking to achieve. These often arbitrary targets get even more murky when you try and include cup performances as well; is finishing 8^th and winning the League Cup a bigger achievement than finishing 3^rd and getting knocked out unceremoniously in the third round to Shrewsbury at home? So playing the expectations game is tricky at the best of times. However, throw in Manchester City and it becomes nearly impossible.

It is almost impossible to look back and judge last season objectively. It was a season of incredible highs (doing the double on Chelsea, the 4-2 at Arsenal), some incredible lows (losing to Manchester United three times by conceding injury time goals, getting pipped to 4^th by Spurs in the penultimate game of the season), and some pretty average times (the eight game streak of draws).

Yet despite achieving our highest league finish, and getting within moments of reaching the League Cup final, it’s possible to feel like last season was a failure. The sheer level of investment in the club, the talent available, and, crucially, the demise of Liverpool, all factored into a feeling that this, at last, was our season. Never had the club been in such a strong position to lay claim to a Champions League place, and yet, we did not achieve it.

Nevertheless, with a fifth place finish under our belts, all eyes turned to us as the transfer window opened once again. Roberto Mancini did not disappoint, spending over £100 million on six new players. New fullbacks (easily the weakest area of our team) were brought in in the form of Jerome Boateng and Aleksander Kolarov, although both are, frustratingly, going to miss the first month of the season through injury. Yaya Toure, brother to former City captain Kolo was brought in from Barcelona, and David Silva was recruited from Valencia. ‘Super’ Mario Balotelli was reunited with the manager that had first given him his debut at Inter Milan. James Milner completed the summer spending, coming from Aston Villa in a deal that saw City academy graduate Stephen Ireland go the other way.

These new signings have an air of the exotic and the exciting, something perhaps lacking in the previous summer window. A lot of our hopes this season rest on how quickly these new players gel with their new team mates, and how quickly they adjust to the English Premier League. Nothing was quite as frustrating as watching Yaya Toure or David Silva having the ball nicked off them in the game against Spurs at the beginning of this campaign. If they reach their potential quickly though, this team could be something to see. Toure’s passing has been sublime in the games so far, David Silva has shown flashes of the brilliance he is clearly capable of, and Mario Balotelli made an explosive debut cameo midweek, scoring, getting booked and almost getting into a fight, all within thirty minutes. The counter point to this is, of course, what if they don’t? It was clear against Tottenham that they were a squad of players who had been playing together, who knew each other, and who were used to each other. As the margins get tighter and tighter in the Premier League, do we have time to wait for the £200m+ of talent to achieve their potential as a team?

With the twenty-five man squad ruling coming in, some players have inevitably seen the door at City. Fan favourite Stephen Ireland has gone to Aston Villa, and Craig Bellamy, Nedum Onuoha and Vladimir Weiss have all gone on loan to Cardiff, Sunderland and Rangers respectively. Its always sad to see players leave, but it feels almost inevitable as the football club continues to grow, especially when the move is right for them as players. None the less, I will always have a special place in my heart for the academy graduates.

One of the biggest decisions Roberto Mancini had to make at the start of the season was which out of Joe Hart and Shay Given would start in goal at White Hart Lane. He selected the young (presumptive) England number 1, and his choice was immediately vindicated as Hart made three or four world class saves to earn a draw. This decision was very tough, but the manager definitely made the right call. Both are world class goalkeepers, albeit with different strengths and weaknesses. However, Shay Given has maybe four or five seasons left in him, whereas Hart has closer to twenty. By handing him the jersey in that first game, Mancini made a statement about Joe Hart’s future, and I couldn’t be more pleased for him, or for the club.

So, after evaluating all that, am I any closer to knowing how I expect City to do this season? No. Some members of the football press seem to think title challenge, but I think that’s at least a season or three away. Fourth place, and Champions League qualification are generally regarded as minimum, and, given the level of investment, and the names on the team sheet, not an unreasonable one. Much of it depends on factors out of our control. Liverpool seem rejuvenated under Roy Hodgson, they will surely expect to improve on last seasons dreary seventh place finish. Will this be the year the young gunners at Arsenal come into their own? With three cups to fight for, we could end up playing in the region of sixty games this season, how will that affect the squad? However, these factor pale in significance compared to the simple question of how quickly can the players gel?

My expectation is a top four finish, and a strong run in the cups, but almost anything is possible, especially when we are talking about Manchester City. All I know is, its going to be one hell of a ride, and trust me when I say, you won’t want to miss a moment of it.