First game of the season

Waiting through the summer for the football season to starts always seems like forever, so when announced that we'd have to wait until the Monday for our first game it didn't go down so well, but the bonus of a first game at home for a change was a consolation. So it was August 15th 2011 when the Premier league finally got underway for us Manchester fans when the boys took on Swansea.

This was my Third season as a season ticket holder and i went to the game with all those hopes and dreams for a new season stronger than ever after we actually managed to win a trophy last season, but (aint there always a but ?) I just had this bad feeling that we would manage to make a mess of it somehow. Facing a newly promoted side in our first game, after spending millions again in the transfer market, i could practically hear the gutter press drooling at the prospect of plunging the knife into Manchester City again. Maybe it's just built into us City fans now and we are just naturally pessimistic.

The ground was full, a sell out, as it should be i guess for the first game back after so long without a football fix, the away fans were in good form, welsh flags hanging from the stands, never seen that before. Seemed like forever waiting for kick off and when it finally came the first 20 minutes didn't do anything to help my "bad feeling" go away. Swansea played some good football and were probably the better team if I'm completely honest. I couldn't help but think of how we hadn't turned up for our last pre season friendly at Wembley last weekend and my bad feeling began to feel a little worse, but then we settled. We started to come into the game a little more and by the time we reached half time we were very unlucky not to be in front. David (Merlin) Silva & Gaz Baz hitting the bar, and Swansea's debutante keeper performing brilliantly meant that the 2 teams were level at the break

So the second half started and now the boys were attacking the goal which i sat behind. I love sitting behind the goal, always have, don't know if that goes back to me playing as a keeper when i still had the energy to play or just the fact i sat behind the goal at my first game at main road all those years ago, but that is my preferred position. I got to see close up the Swansea keeper carry on his good performance and although you sensed a goal was coming, I always had that "they may nick one here" feeling in the pit of my stomach. But then, around 57 minutes in, the breakthrough came.

 

Johnson's shot, saved and pushed a side, but only to fall at the feet of Edin Dzeko and he tapped in the opener. Dzeko had been getting some stick from certain sections of the city fan base last season but i personally think (and hope) that he will come good and i think (and hope) that this could be his season, so it was pleasing to see him get on the score sheet. I was happy now and that "Bad feeling" had subsided. I began to relax, and then a substitution was made. Nigel De Jong made way for our record signing, the little Argentinian took to the pitch. No not Tevez, But a certain Sergio "Kun" Aguero made his Manchester City bow, and the rest, as they say, Is history.

BOOM ! 2-0 Aguero stealing in at the far post onto a fantastic Micah Richards ball across the front of goal to score on his debut and send the City faithful wild. A new City hero ? Lets hope so. My 14 year old son was defiantly very happy as i turned to see him jumping up and down and beaming like a Cheshire cat, as it was only last week he'd had Aguero put on the back of his new home shirt.

BOOM ! 3-0 A great ball from Dzeko to play Aguero in again, this time he dinks it over the oncoming keeper and then just manages to keep the ball in play with a nice over head pass to the in coming Silva who scores. Nice to see Silva get on the score sheet, he was unlucky not to be already. It was also nice to see Silva shooting a bit more. He runs midfield brilliantly and makes things happen, but i thought last season he needed to shoot a little more often rather than look to play people in.

BOOM 4-0 Aguero completes his dream debut in injury time with a 20 yard strike that i'm not even going to try and find words to describe. If you are a city fan you've seen it anyway, and won't mind seeing it again and again i imagine. It was amazing !

Now I'm not going to get carried away, as great a result as this was, I'm not gonna say that we are going to win this and we are going to win that because at the end of the day, No disrespect to Swansea, but it was Swansea. A newly promoted side trying to find their feet at this level, and from what i saw i think they will be ok, they play some good stuff and have some pace in the team to so i don't think they will struggle (guess that remains to be seen though) but i remember days when City wouldn't have put teams like this away like we did. Only last season we went to Villa and dominated, only to lose 1-0, so it was good to see us be patient, and get the result that we deserved. I hope that we can finally start to shake the "typical City" tag that we've had to live with all these years. I'm a happy blue this week though. Seen my team win their opener and I got to watch an amazing half an hour cameo by one of the worlds most gifted footballers in Sergio Aguero. The quality of player I've seen play in blue has been slowly improving since the investment, but this guy looked like something else. Hopefully he'll maintain that all season and bring the best out of Dzeko, silva and Mario and by the time January rolls around, i can be talking about winning this and that and who knows, with a bit of luck, the best player i get to see play at the Etihad stadium this year will be THE best player in the world, Messi, when we are drawn against Barcelona in the champions league. How nice will that be ?

So i shall end this first blog in good mood, as i said, a happy blue. Lets see how this mood changes as the blogs keep coming.  

Thanks for reading........