PREMIER LEAGUE:The Manchester City goalkeeper is focusing on the league after FA Cup disappointment, writes DANIEL TAYLOR
THE SIXTH floor of Arndale Tower, the 1970s monstrosity that would figure on any list of the low points of Manchester architecture.
Shay Given has had a sleepless night, still ruminating on the more traumatic moments of a thoroughly depressing week for everyone associated with Manchester City, but he fixes a smile that comes from years of practice. Putting on a brave face comes naturally for someone who spent more than a decade at Newcastle United before swapping one madhouse for another.
He is here as an ambassador for the Paralympic World Cup, to be staged in Manchester in May. Given is one of those guys who likes to help out – he has his own charity foundation and is a patron for Macmillan Cancer Support – and for those of us who are bored of Ashley and Cheryl, Terry and Toni and the French one with the tricky surname, it is almost therapeutic to be reminded that modern-day football is not this tabloid world of divas and divorces.
But there are glimpses of hurt. On Wednesday night Given was beaten three times as the most expensively assembled team in English football were knocked out of the FA Cup at Stoke. The second goal was a goalkeeping mistake. The one criticism of Given is that he is not dominant enough in the air but, on this occasion, he came off his line to try to intercept one of Rory Delap’s throw-ins. Ryan Shawcross got there first and, after that, Roberto Mancini’s blue and white scarf must have felt like a noose tightening around his neck.
The ramifications could eventually cost Mancini his job and, in this divided city, it means the now-famous banner at Old Trafford mocking City’s chase for silverware will stay in place. Their last trophy, as if any self-respecting City fan needs reminding, was back in 1976.
Newcastle’s own obsessive search stretches back to 1969. At one point Given leans back in his chair and jokes: “It’s me, I’m jinxed.” Deep down, though, there is an aching sense of disappointment. Given looks tired. “I didn’t sleep,” he says. “You can’t sometimes. You try but it’s just impossible. Everything is still running through your mind, the disappointment of the whole thing. It takes a few days to get it out of your system.”
This is his first full season at City and it has been a lesson for him – if he needed one after 482 games at Newcastle – that nothing should surprise you in football. By mid-December the team had lost only twice and were fifth in the league. Then the players arrived for a game against Sunderland and found the newspapers heavily tipping Mark Hughes for the sack. Given’s first reaction was one of disbelief.
“I didn’t see it coming at all,” he reflects. “Everybody else seemed to know but we didn’t find out until afterwards when he was called in to see the chairman. It was just devastating really from a personal level that he wasn’t allowed to see the job through. It was Mark who brought me to the club and I was very sad to see him leave. But the decision was out of our hands.”
The Mancini era began with four successive victories but the team have won only four of 11 games going into a match at Chelsea that, on current form, threatens to be an ordeal for more than just Wayne Bridge.
“He’s doing fine,” Given says of his team-mate. “It’s a personal decision (not to play for England) but I think he has been fantastic. He hasn’t let what has been going on distract him. (Fabio) Capello came to see us in our last home game and he (Bridge) was probably our best player.”
And, besides, there is more riding on it for City than the sideshow of Bridge’s first encounter with Terry, the man caught having an affair with his England team-mate’s ex-girlfriend. This is a crossroads in City’s season – the Champions League in one direction, failure in the other.
There is a strange vibe. Given cannot quite put his finger on it. “I wouldn’t say we are flat but it is disappointing because our recent performances haven’t been good enough. We’ve got to believe we can still finish fourth but otherwise it will have been a disappointing season.
“We started the season trying to win something and that has gone now. Fourth would soften the blow a little and we’re in a strong position, fifth with a game in hand, so we have to believe we can do it, but we are going to have to pick up on our recent form. Our last few away performances, in particular, haven’t been good enough.”
Stoke was a case in point. “We went into the game wanting to get into the quarter-finals and it’s bitterly disappointing. If we had put in our chances we could have been two or three up at half-time but it’s easy to sit here and say that now. Stoke deserve credit, you know.
“You can say all you want about their tactics and their long throws but they deserve credit. And we deserve the criticism, I suppose.
“We’re out of the FA Cup and, with the people we have at the club, we should be doing better. There’s no point pretending otherwise. We should be going there and getting through to the next round.”
Given says he has now got the Thierry Henry handball that denied the Republic of Ireland a place in the World Cup out of his system. But it is difficult to believe him when you ask whether he would mind Henry joining City, as has been mooted, and he blows out his cheeks in horror.
Patrick Vieira sidled over to Given recently and asked him if he wanted any tickets for the World Cup. “I will be on holiday with my family,” Given said firmly.
