http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog ... to-mancini
Roberto Mancini's Manchester City giving fans new reason to crowWith the club on the up, a 20-year-old victory over United may soon be displaced as City supporters' proudest boast
Carlos Tevez's recent complaints about Roberto Mancini's training methods are out of keeping with the upbeat mood at Manchester City as they seek to turn the Big Four into a Big Five. Photograph: Mike Egerton/Empics
It's the morning of 23 September 1989. Paul Lake, the Manchester City player, is driving to the ground, the pre-match nerves kicking in, when he pulls up at traffic lights a mile or so away. Standing at the adjacent bus stop is a City fan in his 30s, with his arm around his son, both of them kitted out in replica shirts and the old-style blue, white and red scarves. They see him in his car and the dad does something that will stay with Lake forever. "Pressing his palms together, as if in prayer, he looks at me beseechingly and simply mouths 'please ... please ... please'."
That was the day of what has become known in Manchester as simply "the 5-1". The paint may have faded down the years but venture into Moss Side and the red-bricked streets around Maine Road and, even now, you will find graffiti on the walls and in the labyrinthine alleyways to bear testament to that famous defeat of Manchester United.
For years this was the default setting for any City supporter jostling for bragging rights with United's fans: the maddest result of the Madchester era, the headlines ('City Leave Sad United Behind', 'Fans Turn on Fergie' and 'United, This Was Simply A Disgrace'), the photo of Gary Pallister on his knees as David Oldfield tapped in the fourth, a pre-knighted Alex Ferguson going home and burying his head under a pillow ... 5-1, thank you and goodnight.
Football supporters generally live in the past only when the present is too hard to bear, and for a long time City's followers clung to that win like a comfort blanket. Their club reeked of poverty and bad organisation. Comedians made wheezy jokes at their expense. Kevin Keegan once had to ask Stuart Hall to stop referring to Maine Road on BBC radio as "the Theatre of Base Comedy." In Blue Moon, Mark Hodkinson's warts-and-all account of City's season in the third tier in 1999, he recalls that staff seldom mentioned United, as if they had accepted the clubs had nothing in common bar the first letter of their postcodes.
A decade on, the dynamics are changing. United still have the prestige, the name, the grandeur, but there is evidence at Old Trafford of a team in the beginnings of possible decline. City are the team on an upward trajectory, sloshing around in money and finally coming to realise that the journey to the top can be taken in measured strides rather than overexcited leaps.
Across the city, United's supporters continue to protest against the club's voiceless owners and the stifling effects of a £700m-plus debt. City fans of a certain generation will remember doing the same against Peter Swales, the fishmonger's son who overheard two directors drowning their sorrows in the pub one night and somehow convinced them he was the man to solve the club's problems. But it is a fading memory now the club are owned by the richest men on earth, sitting on 9% of the planet's oil reserves.
Ferguson has derided City as "noisy neighbours", he has talked of them being a "small club with a small mentality" and when one reporter asked him whether City could ever be regarded as bigger than United his expression combined the anger and incredulity of coming across someone scraping a key down the side of his car. "Nivvah!" he finally blurted out.
But there is also the sense that Ferguson would not be getting so wound up were he not genuinely bothered by the rate at which City are closing the gap. Last season United finished 40 points better off than City. In 2008 it was 32. 2007? Forty-seven. 2006? Forty. Over 12 seasons in the Premier League United have been an average 37.75 points better off. This year the gap is 11. City, indeed, have lost only five times, two fewer than United. They are fourth because they have drawn too many, particularly under Mark Hughes, but it is not since 1990, "ta-ra Fergie" and all that, that they have finished a top-division season with fewer defeats than their neighbours.
Plans are being put in place to increase the capacity at the City of Manchester Stadium to around 60,000. The owners in Abu Dhabi have shown they will spend whatever is necessary this summer to turn the club into serious title challengers next season and, as the revolution gathers pace, there are conspicuous signs of vulnerability among the Big Four.
United have already lost three more league games than last year. Liverpool's regression is the most startling, losing twice last season and ten times this (17 in all competitions). City are six points ahead of Liverpool and, with a game in hand, in position to finish above them for only the third time in 48 years. And, if so, who can deny this is confirmation that English football now has a Big Five?
But wait. Isn't this the club where Joe Royle once spoke of an illness called Cityitis? City never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, right? And yes, they still have to play United followed by Arsenal away, Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur at home and West Ham United away, so there is the potential for a late twist. Except April is no longer a time when City's supporters would get together, bristle with indignity, and complain bitterly about the way their team has performed over the past nine months.
This is why Carlos Tevez's assertion this week that the players were "not happy" with Roberto Mancini's training schedule felt so incongruous. Tevez was irked by Mancini's habit of organising double sessions, but this happens no more than once or twice a week. And, besides, whatever Mancini is doing seems to be working. The team look more organised, particularly in defence, where they have become notably less vulnerable to set pieces since the introduction of zonal marking. Of the 51 goals conceded this season, 29 came under Hughes in 21 games, with 22 in Mancini's 22 games.
Statistics like that mean the chief executive, Garry Cook, and the money men in Abu Dhabi can be forgiven for thinking that the Italian has justified his appointment so far. The players, by and large, sympathised with Hughes but, gradually, Mancini has broken down any friction that existed. He dealt swiftly and efficiently with the problem that was Robinho and what we are seeing now is an authentic football man taking a team and moulding them into his own personality.
Hughes, like Ferguson, would observe most training sessions from the side of the pitch. But Mancini gets directly involved, even setting out the cones and bibs some days. Suddenly everything is starting to click. The team have scored 14 goals in three games and Tevez, regardless of his criticisms, is in the most prolific form of his career. Emmanuel Adebayor's form has returned. The Patrick Vieira experiment has not been a success but it has not mattered too much, and nor has the patchy form of Stephen Ireland and Shaun Wright-Phillips. There have been plenty of players – most notably Nigel de Jong, Craig Bellamy and, latterly, Adam Johnson – who have excelled.
Staff at City's training ground say there is a change in atmosphere. Hughes used to keep his distance. He described Carrington as a "football factory" and was always very much The Boss, with a long and extensive rulebook. The gate at Carrington is manned by a gregarious old Glaswegian by the name of Mike Corbett, a former bombardier who has worked at the club for years and always decorated his cabin with posters of players. Hughes asked him to take them down.
Mancini will be found more often in the communal areas. He likes to mix and staff say there is more laughter now – not a slight on Hughes, just a reflection on the differences between the two men. Mancini's English is broken and he does not make great newspaper copy, but he has disarmed the press, even bringing an espresso into one news conference for the Sun correspondent. His idea of the "Hairdryer" is, well, the electrical thing he uses on that shiny grey mane.
On Saturday, United are at Eastlands and, on current form, it is tempting to regard the home team as favourites. There will always be something distasteful about the deceptions surrounding Hughes's sacking but Mancini, slowly but surely, appears to be showing himself to be a man of class and achievement. Manchester City, once again, is a happy place to be – without having to delve into the archives.
