Citeh, The Future

If twenty four hours is a long time in Politics how much longer is it in Football? The last thirty six have seen Manchester City's fortunes apparently transformed and I'm only one of the thousands of Blues wondering what the next few weeks could contain, not to mention the January transfer window.

The Abu Dhabi royal family's acquisition of this blue and mancunian bit of English football will change the game across Europe. The going rate for a top class striker is now thirty one million quid, as of last night when United had to reportedly up their bid for Berbatov to stop City hijacking the deal. In January, if the reports in Arabianbusiness.com are to be believed (and they broke the takeover story in the first place), that price could have inflated to a hundred and fifty million quid with a another poaching effort, this time aimed at Ronaldo . This kind of money is beyond even Russian oligarchs. It's all incredibly exciting, and if you've watched them struggle season after season, rather gratifying.

You can see the attraction of football as a place to put money. But with players costing hundreds of millions can it really be seen as an investment opportunity? There's something about this which defies logic. If this continues I'll have to start turning up to games again, which will be another problem: I'm used to the troughs, not the peaks. Citeh is about suffering, not cruising. It just won't be the same.