Can Manchester City Break Into The Top Four Of The Barclays Premier League?

The reign of Thaksin Shinawatra at Eastland’s has ended with Abu Dhabi United Group being the largest shareholder at the City of Manchester Stadium. The person behind this is Dr. SulaimanAl-Fahim, the man behind the takeover and also the owner of the Abu Dhabi United Group.

The main mission of this man at Manchester City is firstly, for Manchester City to break into the Top Four of the BarclaysPremier League. This is a very bold attempt for the Arabian, who owns a Costa Rican soccer team, and the German Bundesliga. They also sponsors Dubai sports television. Furthermore, they are building a football academy in Abu Dhabi with Italian giants Inter Milan. Al Fahim himself already has one big role in the sporting world - he is President of the UAE Chess Association.

Breaking into the top four of the Premier League is a tough task for any team in the league. Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool has conquered the top four spots since well, forever. Before the season starts, many teams are being hype to takeover one of the golden spots in the league. Teams like Tottenham Hotspur, Everton and Aston Villa are one of them.

To break into the top four is not easy as ABC but it is achievable with quality players and consistency in every match. Manchester City has many quality players such as new signing and former City boy, Shaun Wright-Phillips, the Brazilian and Bulgarian duo, Elano and Martin Petrov, and the two Englishmen, Michael Johnson and Micah Richards and also many more.

Mark Hughes side this season has not been off to a well start with a lost at Villa Park against Aston Villa in a 4-2 drubbing. But now, after winning against West Ham at Eastland’s and also Sunderland at the Stadium of Light with a solid performance and three goals to nothing shows that Manchester City just maybe have a slight chance to be in the top four.

They are in third place behind Chelsea and Liverpool respectively with seven points out of a possible nine. With the arrival of 32 million pound striker, Robinho to add to the more improve squad of Mark Hughes, the possibility of getting a lot of goals and maybe just maybe beat the likes of their arch-rivals Manchester United which they have done twice last season under Sven-Goran Eriksson.

The loss of Croatian defender, Verdan Corluka to Tottenham Hotspur has not damped the spirits of the players at Manchester City and with money flowing to Mark Hughes’s transfer kitty to buy well-known and experience players such as Ronaldo could prove that the other side of Manchester can be as big as the ones at Old Trafford.

Consistency is a key to break into the top four and this is something that Mark Hughes has to work hard at. Consistency has not been well with Manchester City and this scenario showed when last season, with a great start to the Premier League, they fell flat at the Emirates with Arsenal winning that match with a stunning goal from Cesc Fabregas.

The second main mission of Dr. SulaimanAl-Fahim is that in his second season with Manchester City, he expects them to win the Premier League title and withstand competitions from the top four of the league. Meanwhile, in his third season in charge, he wants them to win the Champions League title.

 Such audacious and courageous words are coming out of the mouth of the Arab billionaire and new Manchester City owner and this could not be the last of it. We will just have to wait and see if Mark Hughes can deliver that elusive top four spot in the Barclays Premier League and break either Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Luiz Felipe Scolari or Rafael Benitez’s heart.