Mancini (The Ted Hughes and BBS thread)

[Manx Blue]

Mancini, why, but why, Tevez out Barry in ???

Because teves was having a very poor game.
I would have taken him off earlier , he was playing for himself and not the team

He is our star striker and we fail when he is not on the pitch.

And if I'm not mistaken, our friend here wants to know why a defensive midfielder is seen as the ideal replacement for our star striker, when we badly needed a goal?

This is something I don't understand either.

Allegedly, Tevez signalled to the bench to come off. I didn't see that myself, but if it's true that explains that.

What I don't understand though, is why you'd bring on Barry who is fundamentally a defensive minded midfielder.

Mancini's explanation was that it unbalances the team having a load of strikers on, but when you're near the end of a game and you need a goal, a lot of shit goes out the window.

With a few minutes remaining and needing a goal a lot of managers will throw their Goalkeepers up there for corners, it's not as if they'd do that during the middle of the game would they?

I remember a few games where Taggart would have Ronaldo, Berbatov, Tevez and Rooney all on the pitch together so I think this about 'unbalancing the team' towards the end of the game when we need a goal is bollocks.

If Tevez didn't need to come off I'd have left him there. If he did have to come off I'd have put Jo on, and failing him - Vieira, anyone but Barry!

I was listening to the web feed through from the website. I can't recall if there was a signal that Tevez to come off, but they did say on a few occasions from the 60-70 minute mark onwards that there were discussions between Tevez and Mancini

[Beefymcfc]

Quote from Mancini on BBC:

"Which pressure? For what? You continue to say I am under pressure. Which pressure? Because some supporters say I did not put two strikers on, or journalists say I am too defensive? I am not under pressure. We are in fourth position. We have some problems. Since the start of the season it has been the case that if Carlos Tevez doesn't score, no-one does. We must improve that. But we have only played 13 games."

[Beefymcfc]

Tevez wasn't injured, as seen by him sprinting off the pitch. He seemed to be asking Mancini for help.

[brite blu sky]

Blue Since 76,

You haven't seen anything in the past, does not preclude you seeing it in the future Mate.
A bit like looking at the foundations of a house and criticising the roof...that hasn't yet been built.

Try looking at this...He changed the defence and it has proved to be successful. Our midfield ids more stable defensively, Mancini was unable to strengthen the attack with the targets he wanted. Mario was not his 1st choice and we are still looking to land a World class striker...Allow him the quality he wants to bring in and then make up your mind.
Try looking to the future and not only the past.

My post above and the one a few days ago was my opinion on what I think the club will do. They need CL football and an exciting team. Do you think the current football would fill a 60,000 seater stadium, or get people in China and India to sign up to CityTV.net? For those reasons, I think he'll be gone. He'll be seen as one of the builders, but not the operator, to sort of continue your analogy. He will be our Ranieri. None of that relates to how I feel about him, more my guess at what the club will do.

My personal opinion on him is that he deserves to be sacked. You talk about not getting all the targets and you may be right, but I'm sorry, football is like that. Did Chelsea land all their targets? Did taggart really want bebe instead of Villa? We can't go on thinking that the only route to success is buying the team. If that's the case, let's just buy Barca (the club) and transfer all the players to us. Some of it has to come down to tactics and coaching. Improve what you have, adapt and make do where necessary.

None of us know what goes on in the dressing room or at training in the Doug Free Zone, so we can only go on what we see on the pitch and at press conferences. On the pitch, we see players who aren't happy with each other. An occasional argument over a missed tackle is normal, but ours seem to be more serious, relating to work rate. Mancini openly criticises some of the players, mainly Johnson. Whilst he is right to say it to him and perhaps right to criticise his night clubbing in the press, I can't see it helps anyone if he says he's not good enough to the papers. He keeps saying the team is rubbish without Balotelli, which puts pressure on him when he returns and what does it say about the other 10, if they have to wait for a 20 year old to show them how to play football? I'm not sure the players trust/respect him anymore, hence shambles like the one today. No one seems to understand the substitutions, not least the players themselves.

Whilst the press are enjoying causing trouble, I'm beginning to think there is more truth in what they say than we'd all like to believe.

There may be something to what you say here, but i think there is another way of looking at it, which is if you have ever been in charge of a group of people and they drop into their comfort zone then you have to be clear, honest and brutal at times to jolt them out of it. I have no problems with the way he has dealt with AJ and others for that matter. Doug reported that Mancini literally had his arm around AJ when doing some extra training work alone.. so that suggests the other side is there. Making public statements just makes it concrete in no uncertain terms what is expected and it can be a way of being honest to both the players and the world at large confirming a consistency.

cheers

[Blue Since 76]

Blue Since 76,

You haven't seen anything in the past, does not preclude you seeing it in the future Mate.
A bit like looking at the foundations of a house and criticising the roof...that hasn't yet been built.

Try looking at this...He changed the defence and it has proved to be successful. Our midfield ids more stable defensively, Mancini was unable to strengthen the attack with the targets he wanted. Mario was not his 1st choice and we are still looking to land a World class striker...Allow him the quality he wants to bring in and then make up your mind.
Try looking to the future and not only the past.

My post above and the one a few days ago was my opinion on what I think the club will do. They need CL football and an exciting team. Do you think the current football would fill a 60,000 seater stadium, or get people in China and India to sign up to CityTV.net? For those reasons, I think he'll be gone. He'll be seen as one of the builders, but not the operator, to sort of continue your analogy. He will be our Ranieri. None of that relates to how I feel about him, more my guess at what the club will do.

My personal opinion on him is that he deserves to be sacked. You talk about not getting all the targets and you may be right, but I'm sorry, football is like that. Did Chelsea land all their targets? Did taggart really want bebe instead of Villa? We can't go on thinking that the only route to success is buying the team. If that's the case, let's just buy Barca (the club) and transfer all the players to us. Some of it has to come down to tactics and coaching. Improve what you have, adapt and make do where necessary.

None of us know what goes on in the dressing room or at training in the Doug Free Zone, so we can only go on what we see on the pitch and at press conferences. On the pitch, we see players who aren't happy with each other. An occasional argument over a missed tackle is normal, but ours seem to be more serious, relating to work rate. Mancini openly criticises some of the players, mainly Johnson. Whilst he is right to say it to him and perhaps right to criticise his night clubbing in the press, I can't see it helps anyone if he says he's not good enough to the papers. He keeps saying the team is rubbish without Balotelli, which puts pressure on him when he returns and what does it say about the other 10, if they have to wait for a 20 year old to show them how to play football? I'm not sure the players trust/respect him anymore, hence shambles like the one today. No one seems to understand the substitutions, not least the players themselves.

Whilst the press are enjoying causing trouble, I'm beginning to think there is more truth in what they say than we'd all like to believe.

There may be something to what you say here, but i think there is another way of looking at it, which is if you have ever been in charge of a group of people and they drop into their comfort zone then you have to be clear, honest and brutal at times to jolt them out of it. I have no problems with the way he has dealt with AJ and others for that matter. Doug reported that Mancini literally had his arm around AJ when doing some extra training work alone.. so that suggests the other side is there. Making public statements just makes it concrete in no uncertain terms what is expected and it can be a way of being honest to both the players and the world at large confirming a consistency.

cheers

Maybe, as long as Johnson isn't hurt or embarrassed by him saying it, and I'd be pretty miffed if my boss slagged me off in front of others. Either way, it didn't work, as he did very little today.

[john68]

Blue Since 76,
I understand and share your disappointment Mate. I think mostfans on here are passionate and feel much the same pain.
For some reason though, you seem to be opicking every negative you can, even the shite that has been published in the rag gutter press in order to confirm your negatvity. You admit to even considering some of that shite as truth.

You give little or no credence to anything that has been said that is in any way positive, even to the point of ignoring the fact that sitting in 4th position and being competetive in the Europa Cup would serve to prove that, for the most part, though boring to many, our record over the season has been quite successful. Poor tactics haven't taken us to 4th have they. I'd be very suprised.

Are you not merely fuelling your own pain with more pain.

[Blue Since 76]

J68
I'm struggling to see the improvement on last season and I wasn't happy with that. We're now better defensively (we still look dodgy, but don't concede many, at least when kolo and vince at the back). However, we rarely look threatening. It's just so slow, with no obvious plan. Today, in the main, they were trying, but they looked like 11 blokes who'd only just met. Where was the crisp passing, the triangles to find a way through? It's a complete waste of the talent available.

In some ways, this is worse than under Pearce or a Frank Clarke. Back then, we knew we were skint and the players were crap, so you just hoped something came off. This team could look so good, play so well, but something isn't working.

[john68]

J68
I'm struggling to see the improvement on last season and I wasn't happy with that. We're now better defensively (we still look dodgy, but don't concede many, at least when kolo and vince at the back). However, we rarely look threatening. It's just so slow, with no obvious plan. Today, in the main, they were trying, but they looked like 11 blokes who'd only just met. Where was the crisp passing, the triangles to find a way through? It's a complete waste of the talent available.

In some ways, this is worse than under Pearce or a Frank Clarke. Back then, we knew we were skint and the players were crap, so you just hoped something came off. This team could look so good, play so well, but something isn't working.

Mate, the record shows that you are right, there is little or no improvement on last season, in terms of points Give or take an incident here or a refereeing decision there, we are very much on a par to where we were last season. Maybe proof that last season wasn't quite as bad as many imagined it was, as it was actually happening. But, hindsight is 20/20 vision.
Be that as it may, Hughes was eventually sacked and we now have to deal with what we have in place this season. That is, unless you want to go back and employ Hughes again.

Did you really expect to see a big improvement, especially in the early stages? Hughes was sacked out of fear that he would fail to make the top 4 and it was argued that he had fallen behingd the scheduled target set him. As it turned out, mancini also failed to reach the target.

Mancini is charged with CL qualification, nothing more and nothing less. He has chosen what he considers to be a safe tactical means to achieve that. It may be boring but as we sit 4th, it has proved to be sufficient to keep on schedule. That is all he trying to do. You are right, this team could play so well and look so good but experience tells us that when Hughes was entertaining us and playing gung ho football, he was sacked. Mancini is therefore forced to take a safer approach. Which is exactly what he is doing.

I have no doubt that it will change, I have no doubt that at some point soon, we will land that elusive World class striker and Mancini will have more confidence in his team to play a more expansive game.

[CITYSTEVEDON]

Very simplistically, the philosophy is that if we don't concede, we cannot lose.


you are right there, BUT if we do not score, WE CANNOT WIN, now if we score we have a chance of winning and get 3 points, but not to concede and not to score is 1 point, now against utd thats ok, top 4 team, but not against birmingham we have to go and score against these sort of teams, and the next 3 games are all loseable for us, fulham,stoke and bolton. we must have a go against these teams, what chance would we have if we got into cl against madrid,barsa and milan teams

[john68]

Very simplistically, the philosophy is that if we don't concede, we cannot lose.


you are right there, BUT if we do not score, WE CANNOT WIN, now if we score we have a chance of winning and get 3 points, but not to concede and not to score is 1 point, now against utd thats ok, top 4 team, but not against birmingham we have to go and score against these sort of teams, and the next 3 games are all loseable for us, fulham,stoke and bolton. we must have a go against these teams, what chance would we have if we got into cl against madrid,barsa and milan teams

TBH, I think that Mancini expected that team to beat Brum quite comfortably. I don't think he had any intention of playing safety first and his comments after seem to confirm this. I don't think he set us up to be negative in the brum game, I think it just turned out that way as the game went on.

Sometimes it's the lesser teams who come to stop you that do just that and the game degenerates. They stopped us>

[CITYSTEVEDON]

Very simplistically, the philosophy is that if we don't concede, we cannot lose.


you are right there, BUT if we do not score, WE CANNOT WIN, now if we score we have a chance of winning and get 3 points, but not to concede and not to score is 1 point, now against utd thats ok, top 4 team, but not against birmingham we have to go and score against these sort of teams, and the next 3 games are all lose able for us, fulham,stoke and bolton. we must have a go against these teams, what chance would we have if we got into cl against madrid,barsa and milan teams

TBH, I think that Mancini expected that team to beat Brum quite comfortably. I don't think he had any intention of playing safety first and his comments after seem to confirm this. I don't think he set us up to be negative in the brum game, I think it just turned out that way as the game went on.

Sometimes it's the lesser teams who come to stop you that do just that and the game degenerates. They stopped us>

your right about teams coming here and try to stop us, but why was we always going back, we had to up the tempo of the game, we was the home team and we did need to win. playing across the back dose not give us any forward movement. we do need to be quicker going forward, that will put the other team on the back foot. and against fulham we do need to have 2 up front, tevez cant do it on his own.

[saulman]

A bit like looking at the foundations of a house and criticising the roof...that hasn't yet been built.

That's fuckin brilliant, John. Great analogy.


The media are doing just that because they hate the builders. Whereas, those of us who have to live in this house should be grateful we're getting a roof over our head at all.

[Wonderwall]

A bit like looking at the foundations of a house and criticising the roof...that hasn't yet been built.

That's fuckin brilliant, John. Great analogy.


The media are doing just that because they hate the builders. Whereas, those of us who have to live in this house should be grateful we're getting a roof over our head at all.

I am completely lost here, but I will get some plumbers, plasterers and electricians just in case we start to get our shit together. But IMO those roofers need to hurry as the weather is turning bad.

[saulman]

A bit like looking at the foundations of a house and criticising the roof...that hasn't yet been built.

That's fuckin brilliant, John. Great analogy.


The media are doing just that because they hate the builders. Whereas, those of us who have to live in this house should be grateful we're getting a roof over our head at all.

I am completely lost here, but I will get some plumbers, plasterers and electricians just in case we start to get our shit together. But IMO those roofers need to hurry as the weather is turning bad.

Don't worry fella. When you can afford the best tradesmen and building materials, you can't really go wrong.
Everything will be watertight, cosy and warm before long and we'll all be wondering what the fuss was about..

[Douglas Higginbottom]

A bit like looking at the foundations of a house and criticising the roof...that hasn't yet been built.

That's fuckin brilliant, John. Great analogy.


The media are doing just that because they hate the builders. Whereas, those of us who have to live in this house should be grateful we're getting a roof over our head at all.

I am completely lost here, but I will get some plumbers, plasterers and electricians just in case we start to get our shit together. But IMO those roofers need to hurry as the weather is turning bad.

Don't worry fella. When you can afford the best tradesmen and building materials, you can't really go wrong.
Everything will be watertight, cosy and warm before long and we'll all be wondering what the fuss was about..

I wonder how much of that comment is based on true 100% belief or just hope?

I hope for that and believe it would be totally wrong to even think about changing the manager now. At the same time I think he is getting plenty wrong at the moment. In the style of play,the selections he is making ,his substitutions,handling of players, handling of the press but he needs to be given the time to correct things.No manager gets it right all the time and there are occasions where it migth look really bad or at least be made to look really bad but lets just retain some faith and give it more time.

We are still 4th.

[saulman]

A bit like looking at the foundations of a house and criticising the roof...that hasn't yet been built.

That's fuckin brilliant, John. Great analogy.


The media are doing just that because they hate the builders. Whereas, those of us who have to live in this house should be grateful we're getting a roof over our head at all.

I am completely lost here, but I will get some plumbers, plasterers and electricians just in case we start to get our shit together. But IMO those roofers need to hurry as the weather is turning bad.

Don't worry fella. When you can afford the best tradesmen and building materials, you can't really go wrong.
Everything will be watertight, cosy and warm before long and we'll all be wondering what the fuss was about..

I wonder how much of that comment is based on true 100% belief or just hope?

I hope for that and believe it would be totally wrong to even think about changing the manager now. At the same time I think he is getting plenty wrong at the moment. In the style of play,the selections he is making ,his substitutions,handling of players, handling of the press but he needs to be given the time to correct things.No manager gets it right all the time and there are occasions where it migth look really bad or at least be made to look really bad but lets just retain some faith and give it more time.

We are still 4th.

I used to hope against hope when we had managers like Frank Clark and Alan Ball in charge. Even with those blokes at the helm and witnessing the crumbling of our great club before our very eyes, I always tried to stay optimistic.

Right now we have one of the best qualified and successful managers in the business. We have an incredible squad. We're 4th in the table.

I'd say it's more of a realistic guess than belief or hope. Would people on here really bet against us finishing 4th at the end of the season? The only way that will happen is if we sack our manager.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

"I'd say it's more of a realistic guess than belief or hope."

I'd say that sounds about right.

[Swales4ever]

"I'd say it's more of a realistic guess than belief or hope."

I'd say that sounds about right.

Nonetheless, while watching a game with zero pace, slowered tempo [see manager's notes on OS's matchday before the game] and - manily - a selfish performance from Charlie, who shooted from everywhere, never looked at other Lads' movements and threw the ball off twice untill he gets Croque in - I did have the exact same feeling You reported Yesterday:
"Is the manager loosing the dressing room's respect/believe?"
A prompt answer will come straight next weekend, and a more minded assessment might come from the outcome of the clash at Stoke, imo

but

because You:
A) are an real pundit of football
B) You proved not to be worried to change Your opinion according to the facts You see and judge in their becoming
C) You're the sole of Us who sniff and smell the Team on daily basis

WHAT ARE YOU ON ABOUT THAT ISSUE, now that the night is over?

An answer will be highly appreciated, Sir DH.

[Ted Hughes]

I think people are missing the point (well two points actually arf arf).

No seriously though, (I'm here all week), the 1st point being that trawling out a mantra about us being 4th & 4 points clear of Bolton, 5 of Newcastle is actually an advert for Owen Coyle & Chris Hughton being as good or better than Mancini. I don't believe that to be true, but that's what the league suggests & shows how the current positions mean absolutely fuck all. It's where we finish that counts & that's what Bob should be judged on. Blindly blarting out "we're 4th" is complete bollox at this stage.

The 2nd point; Bob is getting slaughtered for defensive football but he didn't play defensive football today, it was different to Wed. The problem in a nutshell & the thing which imo will determine Bob's future is; when Bob has tried to attack, like today, more often than not, he's been utterly fucking hopeless at it. He didn't take off Tevez to be defensive; he took off Tevez because he thought it would help the attack. He said so himself & I believe him.

In some of the away games he's suddenly stuck 3 up front, gone for it & got hammered becuse his defensive formation collapsed. This has been my main point on this thread; a lot of his plans, so far, haven't worked. The only part that has really worked is the boring bit which isn't tactical genius, Alex McCleish just did the same to us.


Anyone can pinch results by putting everyone behind the ball. The true test of Bob's credentials is whether he can adapt this team to be a top attacking side. So far he's failling badly but against the lesser sides he is definitely trying.

For all you football snobs on your playstations who've taken the piss when I talked about our lack of quality crosses btw; heres the words of your master on the subjuct:

"I must think like a manager. We can play wide, get the ball into the box, then we can score."

Now we know what part of his plan is, lets see how he does at making it work when everyone's fit & that gives us a simple, obvious test of whether he can improve the team or not.

[Piccsnumberoneblue]

Nice one again Ted.
I think you get close to the truth pretty often.
I would say he was negative by not putting an attacking enough line up on to attack Birmynum.
What was he frightened of? Brum score few goals from open play and yet again we line up at home with one striker and only three natural attackers (Carlito, Silva, A.J.) A slightly more attack minded selection, but nowhere near enough for a team coming to defend against us.
These dropped points may well come back to haunt Bob. His negativity in part cost us CL last season and may well do the same this time too.