Our recent managers

[FA cup winners 2006]

Apologises in starting a new topic on this but just to pick up on a few points raised in other threads.

How gpreviouse our recent manager's? Who got a hard time? Who should have been given more time?

IMO I felt we were going somewhere with mark hughes. I felt people were getting on his back because of how the previous season with Sven had gone (seems so long ago now). For me that was a false season, our form after xmas was relagation candidates and this is the team Hughes took over. He instilled a professionalism in the club and had the players playing to their ability and slowly starting to gel. Fair enough we were conceding too many goals, but we looked sharp, energetic and incisive going forward.

Mancini came in and I was never a fan, it might have tainted my view but its how I felt. I hate the fact that so many fans will always relate whatever success we have to Mancini. I thought at the start of the 11/12 season he had cracked it and let the players loose but no, once they had slightly a bad game he dropped them and demoralised them. I think such a superb player could not understand how performances could drop, but everyone does not have the quality of Mancini as a player. I feel his training sessions were mundane, methodical and lacking intensity. Mancini's answer was to want to buy the best players every year, he wanted van persie and hazard in 2012 and they obviously would have made us a better team but what the following summer, he wants Bale and Cavani or else he throws his toys out of the pram again.

For ages I had been saying (along with lots of others) that we had a good enough squad and that we just needed someone to coach them to get the best out of them and then along came Pellegrini. Along way to go but all players seem to be pulling in the same direction and working so much harder and I think we are going to move to another level.

I hope this thread doesn't turn into another manager bashing/licking thread and everyone just looks at what our manager's have done for us but one nugget of information that I have been told is that Mario has enquired about coming back to Manchester. He felt Mancini had put to much pressure on him. We do have a clause but we don't seem to want to activate it now

[Im_Spartacus]

Sven's dismissal was a fucking joke. The effect of knowing that a manager the players all seemed to like, was devastating in that second half of the season - and I still feel that our biggest mistake in recent times is getting rid of Sven. Had we kept him, I'm fairly certain we would have made top 4 at least one year earlier than we did.

REALLY disliked Hughes, didnt rate him as a manager at all. But at the time he was sacked, I genuinely wanted him to be given the rest of the season as I think we would have finished the season anywhere between 4th and 6th, and possibly had our first silverware. Had he managed that, I think I may have been able to look beyond his flaws and see him have another season, as that would have been a very solid improvement on his dreadful first season.

I think we replaced him when we did for political reasons, a run of draws being the ideal excuse to get rid so that the club didnt have to upset the fans by sacking a manager who had won our first silverware in 40 years. It was a bit of a snide move I thought, and it was certainly snidey how the club went about it.

Similarly Mancini's sacking - it was poorly timed and poorly executed - the club should really have pulled the trigger the minute the news leaked about Pellegrini, even if it was a day before the cup final. I think looking back, from a selfish perspective accepting the the managers resignation (which he did do by the way) before the cup final would have been the right thing to do for the club - and possibly would have ended up with another trophy in our cabinet now.

I think even though I felt they were both no more than average managers with big flaws in their makeup, i will look back on both with some affection for the part they played in our journey. I think we will probably have to get used to the fact that title winning managers will be disposed of should they 'fail' the season after, and that 2nd in the league, domestic cup final losers is a reasonably good season, but that getting dumped out of the group stages of the champs league is a sackable offence, particularly finishing bottom.

[Pretty Boy Lee]

I can't help but like all managers we have while thu are in charge.


That's said there are always point where I lose patience even momentarily. Mancini it was 1st and last season. Hughes it was his 1st season, but then I felt bad for him by the end even if I did call for it after the Burnley draw.

Sven on the other hand I still think did great with the squad he had and whilst may have slightly underperformed at the tail end, he hugely over performed at the start.

[Breks]

I liked Sven and if he would have been in charge of the current squad we would win many trophies. Hughes was crap and i was glad when he went.

[patrickblue]

I was a huge Sven fan, and agree that had he stayed we would have got there sooner. That first half of his season was something special.

[Blue Since 76]

Sven would have been a much better fit after the takeover and the change he made from the drudgery of Pearce to the start of the next season was phenomenal.

Much as I disliked Hughes, he built the spine of the team and brought in some of the important players - Kompany (albeit as a midfielder), Zabaleta, Barry, de Jong, Lescott, even Kolo who was a major upgrade from what had gone before him.

Mancini I just never warmed to despite wanting to. But he won us two trophies and we played some of the best football I've ever seen us play at either of the championship winning season.

I think history will be kind to all three. Maybe they could have done better, but show me a manager who couldn't at some stage?

[dazby]

I disliked Sven of all of our managers. I loved the style of play he introduced however. Such a dichotomy of opinion.

[Moonchesteri]

I disliked Sven of all of our managers. I loved the style of play he introduced however. Such a dichotomy of opinion.

What was there to dislike about Sven? I always liked him, so charismatic gentleman and that early run in the season was mint!

[Blue Since 76]

What was there to dislike about Sven? I always liked him, so charismatic gentleman and that early run in the season was mint!

There was when he said in summer that he had no interest in managing City as he was looking for a big club. A tune which changed when no one else came in for him and it looked like we may have some money.

[Moonchesteri]

There was when he said in summer that he had no interest in managing City as he was looking for a big club. A tune which changed when no one else came in for him and it looked like we may have some money.

Really! I must've missed (or forgot or forgiven) that. Valid point though