Welcome, Roberto Manciti!
// December 20th, 2009 // Uncategorized
Can you see what I did there? Mancini -> Manciti. Clever eh?
Anyway, I’ve been pretty shocked by the ‘outrage’ displayed by a lot of city fans, players and pundits over the sacking of Hughes. Okay I’ve only been surprised by the outrage from the fans. I’ve never ever heard a manager agreeing that sacking another manager was the right thing to do. There’s obviously a lot of self interest involved in pretending that managers should always be given more time, that they’ll always turn it around, that it’s not their fault their team is playing like a piece of sh1t and that it’s absolutely ridiculous to sack a manager.
As for pundits, I’ve never heard them agree that it’s the right thing to sack a manager either. Maybe they’re all secretly worried that the now sacked incompetent manager will try to compete with them for a job boring the public to death with uneducated and ignorant platitudes on the various tv and radio statious they work for. Hey pundits, try doing like 20 minutes research before you call a game, and try explaining why something happened or is happening rather than telling us exactly what we are seeing but without adding any information on what that means or why it’s happening.
As for the players (a delegation of Man City players marched to the boardroom to demand Hughes be kept on as manager), only in very rare cases do you hear of a player celebrating a manager being sacked. Players are pretty fickle and don’t like their comfort zones being changed. Maybe the new manager will make them train harder, or get more angry if they lose, or pick somebody else to play instead of them. If they really cared that much about Mark Hughes not losing his job, they could have actually tried turning up and making some effort against Spurs in midweek. Within a month they’ll have forgotten all about Hughes and be talking up their undivided loyalty to Roberto Manciti (see, it’s catching on).
Which brings me to the fans reaction. Most of these fans were calling for Hughes to go. Part of the lack of love for Hughes was his Man Utd background, part of it was his lack of previous sucess, but Hughes at Man City was never a perfect marriage or even a slightly dysfunctional ‘lets stay together for the sake of the children’ partnership. This season is perhaps City’s best ever chance to break into the top four. They have no Europa cup football to distract, they managed to buy a lot of great players and the big four is as weak as it’s ever been. Surely the ‘perfect’ fool Benitez cannot be allowed to keep destroying Liverpool for too much longer. Apart from the odd high profile victory, Hughes had done little to suggest he was the man to bring city back into the big time. The fans had routinely questioned his ability to handle big names, his ability to motivate for the ‘bread and butter’ games of the premiership and his ability to give the young players (such as Weiss) a chance. All those fans who are now so outraged by the manner of Hughes exit are just idiots being swayed by the media pundits and ex-managers. Stability is all well and good but only if it’s the right guy. Stability with the wrong guy is worthless and Hughes had done very little to make one think he was the right guy. As for the manner of the sacking and appointment of Manciti, I thought it was done excellently. Normally the manager is sacked, then there’s endless speculation about the new manager, maybe a caretaker is appointed and it’s all generally very distracting. Or, rumours leak about the new manager before the old manager is sacked, causing just as much distraction. Instead, we had a non-leaked clinical sacking and new appointment which caused as little destabilisation as possible. For all the abuse Gary Cook etc get, I think they got this one right.
Welcome Roberto Manciti!
posted by Cass
10 Responses to “Welcome, Roberto Manciti!”
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Getting a Sven protege to replace the man who replaced Sven might be construed as a form of progress in some quarters, but Mancini won’t get Citeh anywhere near the Champion’s League to give them the chance to collapse in that tournament as his Inter teams did.
Still, he must feel the new gig is a step up from being turned down by Sunderland after telling the world he’d been offered that job (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/may/31/sunderland-manager-roberto-mancini-steve-bruce)
I hope Hughes is allowed to take that “Welcome to Manchester” poster he found so delightful as memento.
Richard Dunne must be laughing his fat ass off!
I say Cass, that’s rather good.
After 24 hours i’ve just got it, Manciti! Actually it’s very very good.
I wonder if Citeh get caught cheating, which tabloid will be first to call them Mancheaty?
Now now children ! (and of course i include myself in this special, special, group).
I’m off to see my partner in Northern France by way of (Yes, youv’e guessed it : Euro-Tunnel).
So as i wont be any where near food, water, oxygen, or lap-top ……..
Merry Chrirtmas to you all :
See you in the New Year.
Kind regards : John.
all things being equal, I think Mancini has a much better chance of taking City on than Hughes, who was given 18 months and a quarter of a billion pounds and didn’t even look like he was going in the right direction.
Not sure how relevant the fact that Mancini used to work under a previous manager who was employed under a previous regime or the fact that Mancini was so eager to manage in England that he was keen to manage Sunderland (a pretty big club with a big potential). My understanding was that Sunderland couldn’t afford his wage demands which I’m sure were pretty big in comparison to Sbragia.
Anyway, I’ll guess we’ll see at the end of the season, but he definitely looks a better fit at new City than Hughes ever did.
Er Pupone has a point, but only in retrospect. I mean, really — I saw at least 15 Citeh games last year and Richard Dunne was absolutely awful. He has scored a bunch for Villa this year, but he hasn’t yet approached his total of won-goals from last season. And he actually looked good compared to Micah Richards, who was, and remains, absolutely unplayable.
Mind you that both of these players were excellent right until the arrival of Mark Hughes. I have no idea whether it was his tactics or his inability to give his players’ confidence, but Hughes was not getting it done with those clearly talented players. And this year was just a continuation. I know that we all want and believe that Richards can be good, but there is no excuse for playing him over Pablo Zabaleta, as has been the case for much of this year. Richards’ mental errors (like leaving Michael Owen completely open in the final seconds of the derby) and general walking-around-looking-stupefied are not things that are to be worked out in real games.
Also, Man City is in a unique situation. It is now home to several players who just signed for huge long-term paydays that more than doubled or tripled their salaries (Robinho, Adebayor, Barry, others) and have thus lost a lot of potential personal incentive to try that extra bit that gets you over the top. Who have been Citeh’s best players this year? Bellamy, Tevez and Given, three guys who are genetically predisposed to give their all no matter who the manager is. Hughes cannot be given any credit for their success.
The tough part about the Citeh situation will be to make the Robinhos and Adebayors to give it their all. If Hughes hasn’t been able to motivate them from the outset, it’s hard to see how that would develop later on. It’s like teaching — it’s much easier to relax and get less strict than it is to get more strict with your classroom.
Lazar,
You’re right. Richard Dunne was terrible for Citeh last year, constantly caught out and forced into committing stupid fouls and picking up inane cards. I think the main reason he’s so much better this year is that Villa play with a solid back line, so he’s much less exposed. Hughes always had fullbacks (eg, the ghastly Richards and the criminally overrated Bridge) ranging forward, where they’d invariably lose the ball, leaving Dunne exposed at the back. O’Neill’s fullbacks stay home — with the exception of Warnock’s occasional forays — and protect their centre backs, leaving the wingplay to Young, Downing, etc further upfield.
(Conversely, Jamie Carragher was much much better last year with Arbeloa protecting him than he is with Glen Johnson’s bombing forward. Everyone’s in love with marauding fullbacks but unless they can retain possession and/or track back like Maicon, Alves, Evra, they wind up killing their team.)
Robinho, Barry, Toure and Lescott may be dogging it because of their big paydays, but it’s a World Cup year and they do have NT places as incentives. Or at least you’d think so. I have no idea what would inspire Adebayor. Van Persie’s face imprinted on the pitch?
Mancini over hughes? No way! I understand that if you’ve got the billions of oil dollars currently floating around Eastlands then 18 months to turn water into wine is an eternity. However you cannot tell me that Mancini is a better candidate to satisfy the rent-a-success mentality (or should that be rent-o-success? I can never remember) than the much maligned Sparky. As an Arsenal fan I am no Hughsie supporter.. ( I had a mental image of Arsene Wenger running down the tunnel to chastise Spark job for not waving goodbye when the game was up ), but back to my original point.. Mancini over Hughsie?? no chance! ok, lets look at Mr Mancinis CV.. a couple of Coppa Italia cup wins.. (remembering that outside of England Domestic cup competitions are not worth the saucers they rest on) with Fiorentina, but leaves them for Lazio one from bottom of the league.. A Hat-trick of Serie A titles with Inter Milan.. impressive enough until you realise that the first two have to be discounted on account of being handed on that said same saucer, and ok you can argue a case for win number 3, but when you take into account teh Champions league record over the same period, well… honestly, those of you who support Champions league level teams.. who amongst you feared drawing Inter in the quarters????
look Hugsie had his faults, but his record with wales was very impressive and he was no push over at blackburn either.. imagine a young Alex Ferguson at Eastlands.. out the gap after less than a year. City will realise soon enough that when there is one football mad billionaire in town then, yes, as Chelsea proved, you can buy a title.. however its not going to happen twice, and I wager my Fantasy league Puma Beachball that Man City will not win a Premier League title in my lifetime..
Er Purpone,
I don’t think it’s fair to blame Dunne’s poor season last year on Richards and Bridge. After all Dunne had won player of the season for the 4 previous seasons (going back to the keegan years) and I’m sure if I put my mind to it, I could find about 10 full backs he had to work with who were worst than the current ones. Also, during his poor period for city, he was playing exceptionally well for Ireland where he would have been playing with much worse players like McShane, Kilbane etc.
Kevin,
I’m sure you could come up with a good excuse why we should exclude all 7 pieces of silverware Mancini won in 6 years, but with Hughes, you don’t need to make up any excuses cos he’s won nothing! Weren’t you lot all laughing at Hughes and his attempt to get City into the CL? Hughes has been totally uninspiring and not shown any evidence he might take City to the top. Why should all the city fans have to pay for Hughes to learn on the job and put up with mediocrity because he’s British and not doing a terrible job. I’m sure Hughes will do a slightly above average job managing a Wigan or Bolton (or even a Newcastle) and making them a bit better than they were, but he was never going to be a CL winning coach. Also, hughes had been there for 18 months and I’m personally very glad he’s not around to waste another hundred million or so in the coming transfer window.
Cass,
I DIDN’T blame Dunne’s last season on the poor quality of the fullbacks but on Hughes sending them forward, thus leaving him exposed. My point was about tactics, not personnel.
I didn’t see many of Ireland’s games, but, in the few I did catch, the conservative Trappatoni had McShane and “Zinedine” Kilbane stay back with him. I don’t think they ever crossed the halfway line.
Richard Dunne is a good player — in the right setup. This year with Villa shows it.