Mark Hughes exclusive: Mancini is holding City back
Published 21:30 21/10/11 By Oliver Holt
When the revolution came at Manchester City, Mark Hughes knew it would be hard to survive.
He was part of the old regime, a relic of a past without oil money, but he did a fine job for Abu Dhabi all the same.
He watched as shoe salesmen in fancy suits showed him flip charts and unveiled graphs, pointing out lines he must not dip beneath.
He travelled to the Gulf and sat on sofas with Sheikh Mansour while racing stallions paraded in a circle around them.
The United superstar who crossed over to the sky blue side of Manchester guided the club towards a new world and then, when results dipped below the line on chief exec Garry Cook’s graph, he was gone.
“We went through a lot of pain,” Hughes said. “Other people have had the gain.”
“Other people” mainly means Roberto Mancini, the urbane Italian who took over from Hughes in December 2009 and led City into the Champions League at the end of last season.
Given the unfortunate circumstances in which Mancini took over – newspapers knew Hughes had been sacked before he did – it was never likely he was going to be a cheerleader for his successor.
And even though Hughes, who has been out of work since he quit Fulham in the summer, feels no rancour towards Mancini, he does believe the Italian’s management style has not got the best out of his players.
“I don’t know the guy personally,” said Hughes, “but looking at him from the outside, he comes across as autocratic. It’s either his way or the highway.
“I’m not sure he indulges players, tries to get to know or understand them. I’m not sure he’s that type of manager.
“Managing like that in the modern age with modern footballers is more difficult.
“To be an absolute autocrat and not be flexible in terms of how it’s going to be done and not understand your decisions can impact on players is difficult, because they do.
“If you manage like that, there are going to be clashes and the likelihood of having clashes with players is, on the law of averages, going to be more prevalent than managers who try to get the best out of players doing it the other way.
“What Roberto has in his favour is that he is at a top club and it means if he has a problem with a player he can take them out of the equation.
“He can stop using them; whereas at a lesser level, you cannot just write off players because you need them the next week. It’s a different style but at a lower level you can’t be so autocratic.
“If you look at the clubs he has been at – Inter Milan and City – he has had the means to do it. That style of management is what he knows and that’s how he manages because he hasn’t had to manage any other way.”
Mancini’s style, of course, has led him into high-profile conflicts with several players, most notably Craig Bellamy and Carlos Tevez.
Tevez faced a club disciplinary hearing yesterday over claims he refused to warm up during the Champions League tie against Bayern Munich.
Hughes, who managed Tevez when the Argentine first arrived at City, said the problems would not have arisen if he had still been in charge.
“Carlos is strong-willed, certainly,” he said. “Yes, he wants to play and for a guy who has come through life the hard way he still has a genuine desire to want to play every week.
“I never saw him as volatile. I can’t think of one incident where there were flashpoints, but I played a long time and I can handle things like that.
“You learn how to take the sting out of it. It would never have happened under my watch.”
Hughes still has a great deal of affection for City but he believes they still lack many of the qualities United possess.
“City have incredible depth and they can challenge United for the Premier League,” he said. “But in the Champions League, I don’t think they can get to where they want to be either this season or even next season.
“Because I think you have to build that knowledge. United improved year on year and you only develop like that from playing in the competition.
“Whether or not the group as a whole work as diligently and with the same mantra Manchester United have, I’d maybe suggest not.
“Every Manchester United player understands what United is about. The players understand it is a privilege to play for them. They show the club that deference. I’m not sure the group at City understand that yet.”
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