Man City recently visited The Emirates with the clear primary intention of avoiding defeat, their cause largely assisted by an Arsenal side devoid of much interest in winning themselves. Mancini’s thinking could not have been more clearly stated; take a point against Arsenal, then win the points they need for fourth from Villa and Tottenham. Cheeky bugger if you ask me, but he’s technically correct since both games happen to be “six pointers”. He’s got to pull it off first though.

The one point of interest during the bore-fest in North London came late on when Shay Given attempted to make a fairly routine looking save from what could have been Arsenal’s first real shot on goal of the second half. The Irishman landed awkwardly and from the painful reaction – later requiring oxygen as he was stretchered off – it seemed likely that he had dislocated his shoulder, which was later confirmed.

His replacement was not the familiar face of the perpetual bench warmer Stuart Taylor, who is injured himself, but a young man from the Faroe Islands of all places; Gunnar Nielsen. I joked on Twitter at the time about the irony of Man City, with all their money, having to rely on the services of some kid from the Faroes as a back up. A couple of people responded by pointing out that Joe Hart was on season long loan at Birmingham City. I hadn’t forgotten, the point stands, Man City sanctioned that deal.

I call Nielsen a ‘kid’, which in goalkeeping terms is true to a point, but he’s actually 23. He was brought to City by Mark Hughes from Blackburn and the Welshman was also responsible for bringing him to Lancashire in the first place. Perhaps not a ringing endorsement, but someone somewhere must have seen something in him and while the Faroes are far from footballing giants, he is an international player.

My assumption was that Neilsen was probably third choice goal keeper and would therefore start against us on Saturday with someone from the City academy on the bench. City had other ideas. It’s emerged that Neilsen is actually their fourth choice with 27 year old Colombian David González Giraldo third choice, but also injured. Either way, clearly City don’t really want to be dropping so far down the ladder; Neilsen’s OK to sit on the bench, but they don’t want to actually play him. With Hart stuck in Birmingham, are we to assume that City lacked the foresight to ensure there was a recall clause in Hart’s season loan deal?

As it turns out, Manchester City employ no less than 9 goalkeepers. Nine! However, they still went cap in hand to the Premier League to ask for special dispensation to sign an emergency goalkeeper to plug the gap. The powers that be acquiesced and Marton Fulop grabbed his gloves and headed down to Eastlands from Sunderland.

Precedent Set

Earlier in the week I was listening to some podcast or other – ESPN Soccernet I think – and one of the presenters, who happened to have a Mancuian accent, talked about a precedent being set. I knew what was coming and I bet you do too. Yup, back in December 2006 we also had a minor goal keeping crisis of sorts with both Thomas Sørensen and Stuart Taylor picking up injuries in quick succession. I can’t help wondering whether Taylor’s nickname might be ‘Lucky’.

We were forced to rely on the then 21 year old reserve keeper Robert Olejnik – now number one keeper up at Falkirk – to deputise for Taylor, but once Taylor also got injured, MON had similar reservations about handing the gloves to Olejnik as Mancini has over Neilsen.

Hang on here though, a lot of similarities certainly, but a precedent? Really?

Look, no excuses here but Martin O’Neill and Randy Lerner had barely been at Villa for three months at that point. MON had time to make one permanent signing before the Summer window closed in Stiliyan Petrov and admittedly also shored up some weaknesses with a couple of free agent signings. But let’s cut them a little slack if they failed to make having 3 first team quality goalkeepers on the payroll a priority during the limited time they had to work with.

So finding ourselves relying on a promising 21 year old for first team goalkeeping, MON sought permission to make an emergency short term loan, which we were granted. Enter Gabor Kiraly, he of the tracky bottom fame. The Hungarian got us through the tricky month of December and into January, but with a record of 5 losses and 1 draw, it was a case of ‘thanks very much, don’t call us, we’ll call you’ and off he headed.

Life In A Glass House

If I’m honest, I’m not overly impressed about this. It’s really stretching things to draw parallels between our situation in 2006 and Man City now. The word I frequently throw around in relation to City is ‘vulgarity’ and I’m still to find something more appropriate. Call it schadenfreude, call it what you like, but I don’t mind admitting that I found the mess thoroughly amusing. ‘Irony’ doesn’t even begin to describe the situation.

But it’s City’s own doing, isn’t it? As much as I like the image, I doubt very much that Alex McLeish held a gun to Hughes’ head when they did the loan deal for Hart. If they couldn’t work a recall clause in then that’s surely their own problem?

They say that those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, but I really don’t care, City are just about the last team in the League that should be given any special treatment because of a lack of players. It’s almost obscene. (Mmmm, I might have a challenger to ‘vulgar’). That said, it’s really just the principle I object to. I object to our situation in 2006 being equated to City now, but I can’t avoid conceding that losing your first three goalkeepers is unlucky to say the least.

If I were to put the boot on the other foot for a moment and try to imagine how we would feel if we lost Friedel, Guzan and Marshall, leaving Elliot Parish to man the sticks, I guess I’d probably agree with any attempts to seek permission for an emergency loan too.

We’ll find out on Saturday, but who’s to say that Fulop will do a better job than Neilsen could have done? Fulop may be more experienced and possibly a technically better goalkeeper, but he’s never played in any City side before. Communication with defenders is a key element to the role and not something they have any chance of having under control in time. If Ash and Downing can send enough crosses into that sweet no man’s land spot leaving City players second guessing who is going to deal with the ball, I can see us benefiting.

So while I don’t agree with City being given special treatment, even at the risk of appearing hypocritical, even if throwing a few stones breaks some glass, in the end it might not matter. It may even work in our favour.

Regardless, it’s a game we have to win to retain a chance of fourth place – we may need a win just to cling on to fifth – and whoever is in goal has to be beaten. That’s all there is to it, no lame excuses.

But if you want to talk about precedents being set, I think City has just laid down a big marker we’ll hear about again some time.