City accused of destroying football

City unveil big money signing

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Manchester City's Uefa Cup opponents FC Copenhagen have accused Mark Hughes' side of 'destroying football' ahead of Thursday's clash between the two clubs.

City play their Danish opponents in midweek in the first leg of their last-32 clash having spent heavily in the January transfer window, following on from a summer that saw plenty of new faces at Eastlands.

While a world record bid for Kaka eventually failed to lure the Milan man to Manchester, they were able to attract the likes of Wayne Bridge, Craig Bellamy and Shay Given, plus Nigel de Jong, who is not eligible to play.

Lavish spending

Copenhagen boss Stale Solbakken, who experienced English football in his playing days at Wimbledon, remains unimpressed by City's lavish spending.

"The amounts of money that have been mentioned are incredible," Solbakken told Ekstra-Bladet.

"I think that such incredible sums will take part in destroying football.

"They are creating too big a mental distance between what we call reality and then Manchester City."

Bridge too far

Although he did not mention the failed attempt to sign Brazilian superstar Kaka, Solbakken could have been referring to it with a stinging attack on how much difference the money being invested in City will actually make.

"The hardest part for City is that they, by tradition, are not a big football club and therefore all the money in the world does not make a difference for them," Solbakken said.

"They brought in Wayne Bridge even though he is only marginally better than what they had already and that says how hard it is to get the best players even though you have lots of money."