David Beckham today was interviewed in the Daily Mirror and the England midfielder took the opportunity to have a dig at his former club’s local rivals Man City. Aside from claiming that he would never join mega-rich City, a bit vain to think that City would want a 34-year-old with links to their old rivals, Beckham took the opportunity to declare that City could never be as big as United. He’s quoted as saying

“City will never be bigger than United. Money does a lot for a club and a team, but being successful and being one of the most recognised clubs in the world doesn’t come from the money. It’s about history. There aren’t many clubs that can boast the history of United, Real Madrid, Barcelona or AC Milan. It’s not about having all the money in the world. All that does is creates attention but you can’t buy the history of a club.”

Perhaps Beckham is overlooking the fact that United were not always a big club and that City once were title challengers. Long before the Premiership era and United’s dominance City were a pretty good team, though unpredictable, and they were certainly superior to United for some time, although Beckham has overlooked this either intentionally or through ignorance.

Also, Beckham has not taken into consideration the way the clubs are going: United may be involved in a title chase but they definitely look the weakest they’ve been for a long time, there’s rumours of severe financial problems that are on the verge of putting them in real trouble and they’ve been beaten to many high profile transfer targets in the last few years – United’s dominance looks to be very much under threat.

For City on the other hand, the only way is up. Many would like to say that money can’t buy you success but we’ve already seen that it can – Chelsea proved that and, despite possessing much less history than the likes of United and Real Madrid, Chelsea are considered to be just as big a club in the current game. There’s no reason City can’t emulate them; they have even more to spend, seem to be going in the right direction and are unlikely to suddenly fall apart unless Sheikh Mansour walks out – which isn’t going to happen.

United may have a historical edge over City but the fact remains that whilst United could either spiral to depths unseen in years or could hold on for title fights for years to come, City can buy their way into contention and – along with some cracking support – can establish themselves as a top side. It’s only a matter of time before they win the league and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen within the next few seasons. The better City do this season the higher the profile of players willing to sign for them will be. City have entered contention into bids for any big name player and aren’t just brushed aside as being a team making up the numbers – money talks, Robinho’s proof of that.

If Beckham were to say that City currently aren’t a bigger club than United then he would be right but to say that they’ll never make it to such heights is preposterous; City’s future looks set to be a very good one and it’s not implausible to think that they could overtake United – obviously it’ll take some time to match all that silverware but it’s far from impossible and Beckham should’ve thought of his words more carefully.