Roberto Mancini does not need an interpreter to understand that the first serious questions are being asked of his ability to deliver a top-four place for Manchester City.
The humour came less easily to Mancini as he spoke ahead of Tuesday’s game with Bolton. The smile was a little forced.
But, asked whether he was still confident of securing the Champions League place that could be the difference between keeping his job in the summer and saying goodbye after six months, the Italian remained defiant.
Mood swing: Man City boss Mancini has not looked happy since losing at Hull
‘I am more confident,’ said Mancini. ‘You must remember that we have two games in hand. This is an important fact and, if we win these two games, we will be in fourth position and we will be one point behind Arsenal.
‘Had we won on Saturday, and we had big chances, we would be on target.’
The trouble is, City did not win on Saturday. They lost at Hull, the second defeat in six Barclays Premier League games under Mancini.
Throw in the Carling Cup exit against Manchester United and he has lost more times than Mark Hughes did, having played less than half the number of games.
For a man who claimed that winning the Premier League was his target for next season when he first succeeded Hughes, finishing fourth this time is looking increasingly difficult.
Defeat at Hull left City three points off a Champions League spot although,
significantly, with two games in hand on Liverpool and Tottenham. They could conceivably be fourth on Tuesday night.
Mancini, who left the dressing room and returned to the dug-out early at half-time, admitted that he had let his players know how unhappy he was.
‘Yes, I was angry,’ he said. ‘I spoke with them and left early because it was important that the players were calm and were allowed to relax and understand the situation they were in.’
Mancini has made progress since arriving. But that fourth-place promise hangs over him. His veiled criticism of Hughes’s squad-building was a little wide of the mark.
Mancini omitted Vincent Kompany from the choice of central midfielders available to him, saying: ‘I know a lot of money has been spent but for me it is strange that now we have only three central midfielders — Gareth Barry, Nigel de Jong and Stephen Ireland.
‘It is impossible to play a whole season with three central midfielders.’
Now he also has Patrick Vieira, who will make his full debut against Bolton.
Failure to deliver that Champions League place will almost certainly end his stay in Manchester, with both him and the club believed to have a break clause in his three-and-a-half-year contract that will be reviewed this summer.
That is the main reason why Mancini stays in a hotel, having recently confirmed Sportsmail’s story in December that he refuses to buy a house or apartment and move his wife over from Italy until there is a guarantee of a more permanent future.
In an interview in Italy, he said: ‘If I get an apartment, that means that fourth place is becoming reality. From there, I can really launch the true City project.’
City made overtures to Guus Hiddink, as well as Jose Mourinho, before appointing Mancini, and the Dutchman’s name continues to come up among the list of possible replacements if City do decide to part with the Italian at the end of the season.
Robinho: In Europe, the coach sends you out to run. Here in Brazil, I play...
Sponsorship across the front of his shirt, the front and back of his shorts and down both arms. The walking advertising board in the Santos No 7 shirt has to pay for his salary somehow.
Until Robinho signed, Santos did not have a shirt sponsor. Now they have three for his first match; this is what Robinho has let himself in for. Not only has the 26-year-old seen his £160,000-a-week wages halved by agreeing a six-month loan from Manchester City’s bench to Santos, he will also have his image pawned out to companies bankrolling the extravagant signing of a club with £8.5million debts.
Back with a bang: Robinho enjoyed scoring on his second debut for Santos with a beautiful back-heeled effort against rivals Sao Paulo
He is not alone. This is the home of Pele and most visitors to the city’s central Praca Independencia will find the greatest football icon of them all pictured above Poupafarma in a yellow and white uniform, looking aghast at the low prices of the medicines inside.
Robinho is home, quitting the cold English winter for the baking Brazilian summer, where youths line the Gonzaga beach to play football at temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius.
Click here to see the video of Robinho's cheeky winner
Right now he would be happy if he never played for Manchester City again. After a rock star’s entrance by helicopter last week, hand in hand with Pele, now 69, and soaking up the adulation of thousands of fans, he declared it would be great to stay for four years, giving the prime of his career to a club he left on bad terms five years ago when Real Madrid came calling.
‘I came here in search of happiness,’ he said after a dream debut that saw him come off the bench and score the winning goal at Sao Paulo with an exquisite backheel on Sunday.
‘I get depressed when things are not right. I know my responsibilities. On Sunday, I made a lot of people happy. The goal wasn’t difficult. It was the only way I could score.’
Sealed with a kiss: The Brazilian celebrates his goalscoring return
The only way to wipe the smile from his face is to mention his five years of desperate under-achievement in Europe.
Robinho smarts when he recalls how Madrid tried to use him as part exchange in their bid to sign Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United. Robinho thought he was equal to the Portugal star. He wasn’t 17 months ago and he certainly isn’t today.
In his final season at the Bernabeu, a place on the bench was all too common, which brings him to the naive conclusion that then-manager Fabio Capello does not like Brazilians.
With the same scenario being played out at Eastlands this season, Robinho admits he does not understand the tactics of another Italian boss, Roberto Mancini.
‘He has a different way of thinking,’ said Robinho. ‘In Brazil, the coach respects the player’s characteristics.
‘In Europe, they are used to playing with two lines of four players, and they don’t want to know what you can do.
‘There, if you are a forward, the coach sends you on to the pitch just to run. You have to run and that’s it.’
Tactics are less rigid in Brazil, where line-ups tend to be picked around the best players.
But for all that he might feel at home (for now), City are not about to simply let go of a player for which they paid a British record £32.5m. And when Robinho takes a harder look around the tatty, 18,000-capacity Vila Belmiro stadium here and the standard of matches he is about to face, he will soon realise that here is not a place he can fulfill his ambition of being the best player in the world.
The 2-1 win against Sao Paulo put Santos top of the Sao Paulo State Championship,
a once-great tournament which has become devalued thanks to the expanding national league, which only really kicks off once Robinho is due back at Eastlands.
In good company: Robinho is welcomed back to Santos by Pele
The so-called San-Sao Classico was played out in front of just 15,000 fans at the Arena Barueri - a half-built stadium on the outskirts of Sao Paulo surrounded
by precarious improvised housing - rather than at the 67,000-capacity Morumbi.
Brazilian football these days is for rising teenage stars and those at the end of their careers like Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos, not for those in their prime. Unless you are Robinho.
‘I am preparing mentally and physically to be the best player at the World Cup,’ he says. ‘I’m at a good age. I have to get flying!’
Pele had won two of his three World Cups by 26, while Robinho is hoping for his first in South Africa.
It was the legend who discovered his apprentice 11 years ago. Training Santos’s youngsters, Pele excitedly professed that Robinho would be a great player. He even organised a dentist to sort out the 15-year-old’s toothy grin.
Different wavelength: Robinho admits he struggled to accept Roberto Mancini's tactics and way of thinking at Manchester City
But for those who wanted to call Robinho his successor, the clue is in the nicknames. Pele is O Rei - simply The King - a player who had it all and scored more than 1,000 goals for Santos and made countless more. Robinho is O Rei das Pedaladas - King of the Stepovers - a player who has all the skill in the world but not enough end-product to show for it.
There is a New King emerging here. Neymar, 18 last week, is O Novo Rei and Santos are braced for a raid from City for a player who has been involved in three-quarters
of his club’s goals this year.
As part of the Robinho loan deal, City acquired a first option on forward Neymar and 20-year-old playmaker Paulo Henrique Ganso, who both impressed against Sao Paulo.
Neymar’s agent Wagner Ribeiro, who previously represented Robinho, is understood to have already informally spoken to Chelsea and Real Madrid about a move when the time is right, but Santos insiders expect City to make a move after the World Cup.
Although the £44m buy-out clause in his contract is prohibitive, the price can soon tumble if an extended deal for Robinho is up for grabs. Perhaps then Robinho can get comfortable as the King of the Pharmacies.
TRANSFER BOLLOX
Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery has admitted he is tempted to link up with his France team-mate Thierry Henry at Barcelona.The Guardian
Arsenal are closing in on the signing of Bordeaux striker Maroune Chamakh after his proposed move to Liverpool collapsed. The Times
WAG OF THE DAY
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OTHER BOLLOX
Liverpool have emerged as a takeover target for the seventh-richest man in the world, Indian Mukesh Ambani. The Times
Arsenal have written to Barcelona to demand the Spanish giants stop their public campaign to try and sign midfielder Cesc Fabregas. Daily Mirror
New West Ham owner David Sullivan reckons any Birmingham fans who abuse him at Wednesday's game are fools after declaring his regime at the Blues the best in the club's history. Daily Mirror
Meanwhile West Ham co-owner David Gold has fanned the flames of controversy before the clash at Upton Park by saying the Hammers are bigger than the Blues. The Times
Stoke striker Ricardo Fuller will keep his place in the squad for Tuesday's Premier League match at Wigan despite being arrested on suspicion of assault. The Times
Mark Hughes is weighing up whether to become Turkey's new manager, two months after he was sacked by Manchester City. Daily Mail
But Hughes could be in line to replace manager Gianfranco Zola should West Ham continue to struggle while Russia coach Guus Hiddink has also been linked to the vacant job at Turkey.
The Times
West Ham manager Gianfranco Zola and his players will be asked to take a 25% pay cut at the end of the season. The Sun
Ian Holloway has axed three of his Blackpool players for Tuesday's games at Sheffield Wednesday after they were spotted in a nightclub on Saturday night, hours after their 2-1 defeat to Leicester. Daily Mirror
Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand, the new England captain, was last night still agonising over whether he should withdraw his appeal against a four-match violent-conduct ban as a gesture of goodwill to the Football Association. Daily Telegraph
Former Bradford striker Dean Windass is among the favourites to replace Stuart McCall as boss of the Bantams. (Daily Mirror)
Kieron Dyer's time at West Ham could cost the club a staggering £30m over the course of his four-year contract. The midfielder has started only five league matches in his two-and-a-half years at Upton Park and has yet to score.
Daily Mail
