Roberto Mancini has stamped his authority on the Manchester City dressing room after some players reacted angrily to Mark Hughes’ sacking.
Roque Santa Cruz has revealed that the new City boss laid down the law to the players when he met them for the first time yesterday and ordered them in for a double training session today.
Mancini has made shoring up City’s leaky defence his top priority and Santa Cruz says he has already started his rebuilding job.
“In the first day he was shaping the team a little and giving us ideas of what he expected from us,” said the striker. “He knows exactly what he has to do. There is a lot of work to do tactically and I think he will do it.
“We were working very well on reshaping the team, which is one of the things we need to do to get the right balance defensively.
"We will have a double session tomorrow and for sure he will get ideas and tell the team what he expects from us.
”He wants us to close people down. He wants us to be solid and tight and to make it very hard for the other team to play between the lines. And then once we get the ball, to play it wide.
”We have a lot of defensive work to do and then we will have time to address other things which have been causing problems to the team and solve them in the best way possible.”
Mancini must head the wounds caused by Hughes’ brutal axing straight after Saturday’s 4-3 win over Sunderland at Eastlands and some players, led by Craig Bellamy, voiced their anger to the City hierarchy.
Santa Cruz was sad to see Hughes go, having known him since their Blackburn days, but pledged to help former Inter Milan coach Mancini achieve the club’s goal of a Champions League place.
“Naturally, there was some anger,” said the Paraguay star. “We had won the game and things still happened.
“Garry Cook came down and told us after the game. He told us what decision the Sheikh had made and that it was for the good of the club because they were aiming to build something not only for this season, but for the coming ones as well.
“We are employees of the club and if you’ve got something to say, then you say it. But you work for the club and you want to do the best for the club.
”If they think it is the best choice, we know as a fact that they want the best for club as well, so you just have to put our best into every session and try to help the new gaffer to find the results that are expected and move forward.
”Of course it's sad. It is never going to be an easy thing to see your gaffer going because it is somebody losing their job and, even if you don't have a good relationship with your manager, you cannot be happy to see him leaving the club having lost his job.
”Our results have not been incredibly good, but not incredibly bad either. But things have happened because you have people here who want to achieve the top four.
”Football is sometimes like that and you need to carry on. We want to see the club in the top four so there is a lot of work to do. Everybody needs to keep looking forward.”
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