Is City's plight really an 'emergency'?

Manchester City’s bid for fourth place and a spot at Europe’s top table next season suffered a blow when Shay Given was ruled out for final couple of games on account of a dislocated shoulder. The cash-rich City have a classy understudy on their books in Joe Hart, but he is on loan at Birmingham. So the spotlight falls on Gunnar Nielsen: an international keeper – albeit with Faroe Islands. But he is seemingly deemed not good enough as City are seeking dispensation from the Premier League and FA to bring in a keeper on an emergency loan – something Tony Cascarino in the Times is not happy about.

The “emergency loan” rule should be for skint teams in Coca-Cola League Two with squads of 18 players who have been hit by an unprecedented injury or illness crisis, not to get the richest club in the world out of a hole caused by their failure to build a balanced squad.

It’s not bad luck that Manchester City find themselves short of an experienced goalkeeper after Shay Given’s injury. It’s bad planning. Why should the Barclays Premier League bail City out of a mess that is of their own making? After all the millions they have lavished on players’ wages, it’s daft that City didn’t spend a small sum on a veteran who could have served as a solid third choice and done some coaching.

In an era when squads are so large and rotation is the norm, City’s squad is so lopsided it’s crazy. Felipe Caicedo, Jô, Robinho, Benjani Mwaruwari: four capable forwards out on loan because City have another four, better, attackers at the club. They are well set to cope with a raft of absences up front, yet they can’t deal with injuries to two senior goalkeepers. Even if Stuart Taylor, the back-up, had been fit, he’s hardly a great option. Why take the risk with so much at stake?

And whose idea was it to let Joe Hart — who has been the most impressive English goalkeeper this season — go on loan to Birmingham City without any recall clause? If City had been smarter, they would be smugly sticking Hart into their line-up, knowing that the best second-choice goalkeeper in the league was at their disposal.

If I read that a club have signed a goalkeeper under an “emergency” rule, I expect to see that it is because there is no fit option on the books over the age of 16. But that isn’t the case at the City of Manchester Stadium. They do have a goalkeeper: Gunnar Nielsen, who came on for Given at the weekend against Arsenal and did OK. He is 23! He has even played international football, albeit only for the Faeroe Isles.

So it’s not as if City would be forced into playing Carlos Tévez in goal against Aston Villa on Saturday unless the Premier League granted their request. It’s not like they’d be handing Gareth Barry a pair of gloves in training this week and seeing if he is any good on crosses. It’s that City don’t fancy their third-choice goalkeeper much in the heat of a battle for fourth place, so they’d like to get in someone better. That is not a good enough reason.

The Premier League should tell City, “Tough. You have a fit goalkeeper. If you don’t want to play him, that’s your problem. You should have signed an alternative when the window was open.”

Lamps left in the shade

The PFA awards were dished out at the weekend and Wayne Rooney was rightly lauded for his efforts this term. But the Team of the Season did not include one Frank Lampard and it is something that left Sun columnist Ian Wright scratching his head in disbelief.

Frank Lampard has weighed in with a hefty goals tally for Chelsea. Yet again. Any top-class striker would be delighted with 25 goals yet Frank does this season after season.

He has scored 20 of those in the Premier League, which is two more than Jermain Defoe and Fernando Torres. People talk about Bobby Zamora going to the World Cup and he has scored just eight league goals.

Frank may not be playing at his best but his contribution in the goals department is still staggering. For this reason, combined with such consistency over the years, I found it absolutely staggering that he was not on the four-man shortlist for the PFA awards.
I'm amazed not more professionals voted for him.

But for Frank, it will be a special moment if he ends up with another winner's medal. Few will argue that in terms of consistency and quality, he takes some beating.