Martinez: City not great yet

MANCHESTER CITY cannot be considered a great side until they have a cabinet full of trophies, Wigan boss Roberto Martinez has claimed.

City visit the DW Stadium tonight and though Martinez says they are title favourites, they are still a way off the likes of Barcelona.

Martinez said: “What measures you as a good or a bad team is achieving things and winning titles. What Manchester City has done has been phenomenal. I know money has been important but to get a team out of the individuals is where the difficulty lies. They can win any competition they go into, and they have done a remarkable job but only time will tell how good they can be.

“Barcelona probably five years ago were in a similar situation, showing good signs.

“But you can only be measured as a great side when you win titles and that’s probably the exciting times ahead for Manchester City because they are showing they have everything in place to win trophies.”

Martinez said City are now reaping the rewards of Roberto Mancini’s long-term planning, with the Italian first having made the side difficult to beat, before making them into a dominant attacking force.

He added: “Roberto Mancini had a massive impact as soon as he arrived. He knew the Premier League through his spell at Leicester and he had achieved huge things in Italy.

“He’s a special manager from a tactical point of view and he’s someone who has always had the long-term plan of what he wanted at Manchester City.

“They were a very solid team, very hard to break down at the beginning, and then he added the attacking options that has made them one of the attacking forces in the Premier League.

“It’s fascinating to see how he had that structured plan in his head and how he has developed that.”

City assistant boss David Platt does not believe there will be a change of philosophy from Wigan tonight even though the Latics are at the bottom of the league.

After claiming an encouraging 10 points from an eight-game run that included fixtures against Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, a woeful home defeat by Sunderland brought an air of gloom to Wigan once more.

Since then, both Bolton and Blackburn have managed victories so Martinez’s men are rock bottom again as they prepare to entertain the Premier League leaders.

Yet Platt knows Martinez too well to believe the Spaniard will be panicked into changing a free-flowing style that has served him so well throughout his managerial career.

“Wigan play football and they won’t go away from that,” he said.

“They had a very bad run that has seen them involved in a relegation battle but Roberto Martinez has his own style and he will stick to his philosophies.”

That Wigan offer opponents the space to play in a bid to make the most of their own expansive style as opposed to other teams in the relegation struggle who tend to rely more on an ability to scrap, in theory should play right into City’s hands.

However, it cannot be ignored that alongside heavy defeats to Arsenal and United came draws against Chelsea and Liverpool.

And in the case of Chelsea, Martinez’s team were decidedly unlucky just to come away with a point.

Even in the middle of that horror run of eight successive defeats that Platt referred to, Wigan overcame the handicap of playing with 10 men to give Tottenham a real run for their money.

“Wigan have picked up just recently, in terms of the points they have taken,” said Platt. “They will be full of energy and will try and take the game to us. We know it will be difficult.”

With skipper Vincent Kompany serving the second game of his four-match ban and Kolo Toure on African Nations Cup duty with the Ivory Coast, 21-year-old Montenegro international Stefan Savic is set to continue in central defence.

Samir Nasri would hope to have more involvement too as City look to emerge from a run of just one win in their last five games, which has seen their prowess in front of goal drastically curtailed.

Not that Platt is fazed by that.

Victory will take City three points clear of Manchester United and five ahead of Tottenham and his own experience of title-winning campaigns will ensure he does not lose focus on the overall goal.

“It’s an obvious thing to say, but to win it, you need to get more points than the others,” he said.

“In our position that means not getting less than two points fewer than the others.

“That will be achieved by winning matches. Everything else is irrelevant.”