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...Despite Winning The Premier League.

Manchester City may have won the Premier League, but was it in spite of Roberto Mancini?

Pitch Talk's Gavin Henry has been running through his disappointments of the season this week on HITC Sport.

Here's why Roberto Mancini is his second biggest letdown of the season...

Some say it's been a hard season, rightfully coated in a pot of glory paint (just about) but like any painted surface there is an unwanted surface beneath.

Manchester City has been fortunate to say the least in my opinion, a squad full of talent with a few rotten eggs that marr the batch.

Truthfully I can't deny that for most parts of the season they have played the best football, but you rarely expect anything less from the team assembled from a £700+ million investment.

However as a club second to Liverpool in this area at times Manchester City has looked like a shambles, the likes of Tevez, Balotelli, and Mancini all playing their part in this.

Many are still putting City's landmark successful season down to the man at the helm Roberto Mancini - but not me.

In my eyes he's the reason why City's season came to such a tight finish, in fact I'd extend that sentiment to ‘City struggled to win the title’.

Mancini management of his players, especially Tevez and Balotelli has to be called into question. At time he has looked spineless.

His media handling of the Carlos Tevez saga basically widened the growing rift between him and the player. Tevez, the forever moaning Argie, got told how many times that Mancini was through with him, he's never going to play for the club again.

But in reality when Mancini realised his title chances were slipping away he called on the Argentine star, which absolutely went against his own words.

Then you have Balotelli, forever bringing the club's name into disrepute with his erratic actions. Any other manager (Sir Alex Ferguson, Wenger, Mourinho etc) would have frozen the Italian out of their squad but not Mancini - he let him off with the excuse of him being such a stupid young boy.

This is typical of a manager who doesn’t know what he’s doing, and is just letting players run rings around him.

I want people to look at the abundance of money he has, which in the modern era of football is the overall attraction and the football comes second.

Most of us have probably played football manager and we know the factors which determine you to have a good season or a bad season and we also know that the only thing that can make all your problems irrelevant (injuries, upset players, poor form) is money.

The more money you have the easier the game becomes. It becomes less about real strategising or technicality and more about 'How many star names can I fit on the bench?'

As certain players he once and still manages became victims of; Boateng sent back to Germany; Hargeaves, Savic was basically bought to make up the numbers

Mancini's answer to all his problems at City has become ‘I need new players” and if there is one thing he’s proven to me this season; "It’s lots of money, poor man management and tactical knowledge can win you the premiership by 8 goals."

[urlnp=http://hereisthecity.com/2012/05/25/roberto-mancini-was-a-disappointment-despite-the-millions/]Link[/urlnp]

Ted Hughes wrote:It took Ferguson seven years, does anyone belittle his achievements?

People could say 'oh he didn't have the resources Mancini has' but in actual fact, compared to other teams at the time, he had a much bigger advantage. No other club could buy a full team of top internationals (mostly British/Irish) like Ferguson did; it was unprecedented & they already had a side which had finished runners up before he arrived. There were very few non British/Irish players in the market here in those days. Therefore, as far as this country is concerned, Utd bought basically everybody that the top clubs wanted; they 'blew everyone out of the water' for almost every top player .

The only ones they didn't get were down to the individuals choosing to sign elsewhere; they bid enough money to sign eveyone.

In spite of this, it took the ' world's greatest manager ever ' 7 years to win the league. Mancini took over a club which had won fuck all since 1976, won the FA Cup & then the league in the space of 3 years.

He has been better than Ferguson.

Ted Hughes wrote:He has been better than Ferguson.

Beefymcfc wrote:I've got to say IS, that I think your view point is, how you say, blinkered. In your post you seem to put the end of season form down to one man and that is Tevez. Does Mancini not get the credit for firstly, keeping him out for his sin's, and secondly, for bringing him back in at the opportune time? We can say all we want about Mancini and Mario but the truth is that Mancini took the chance and got the results.

You also say about a great manager getting poor teams to win. This is true but what did that great manager win this season? Taggart has won things with great teams yet this year without one, as you say, he didn't win anything. For me that says it is more than one dimensional, you can't just rely on a manager or rely on a team, it's a culmination of things that create what we've had this season.

I for one am not Mancini's greatest fan, I see things that I don't like and sometimes have a go at things that concern me, that's why I said I'd save my thoughts for the end of the season. But credit where credit is due, he's done a fantastic job under very difficult circumstances. To be winning for the majority of the season and then to look as though there was no hope could've caused the majority of manager's to curl up in a ball, especially considering some of the circumstances, but Mancini came out fighting, took the pressure away and led us to glory. The manner in which it happened was one of, if not thee best moments in top flight history.

Blinkered? Blinkered is keeping the same stance when we were at our lowest ebb, failing to acknowledge what he did post that Arsenal match. The point of view that Mancini just got things wrong is one that I cannot comprehend as it fails to take in all the things that football is about; the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

So, back to my original, the article is a pile of shit written by someone who clearly has not concept of football and has no other thought but to try and discredit our manager, a manager who has brought more joy to the fans than any other since Joe Mercer OBE.

Im_Spartacus wrote:

Beefymcfc wrote:I've got to say IS, that I think your view point is, how you say, blinkered. In your post you seem to put the end of season form down to one man and that is Tevez. Does Mancini not get the credit for firstly, keeping him out for his sin's, and secondly, for bringing him back in at the opportune time? We can say all we want about Mancini and Mario but the truth is that Mancini took the chance and got the results.

You also say about a great manager getting poor teams to win. This is true but what did that great manager win this season? Taggart has won things with great teams yet this year without one, as you say, he didn't win anything. For me that says it is more than one dimensional, you can't just rely on a manager or rely on a team, it's a culmination of things that create what we've had this season.

I for one am not Mancini's greatest fan, I see things that I don't like and sometimes have a go at things that concern me, that's why I said I'd save my thoughts for the end of the season. But credit where credit is due, he's done a fantastic job under very difficult circumstances. To be winning for the majority of the season and then to look as though there was no hope could've caused the majority of manager's to curl up in a ball, especially considering some of the circumstances, but Mancini came out fighting, took the pressure away and led us to glory. The manner in which it happened was one of, if not thee best moments in top flight history.

Blinkered? Blinkered is keeping the same stance when we were at our lowest ebb, failing to acknowledge what he did post that Arsenal match. The point of view that Mancini just got things wrong is one that I cannot comprehend as it fails to take in all the things that football is about; the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

So, back to my original, the article is a pile of shit written by someone who clearly has not concept of football and has no other thought but to try and discredit our manager, a manager who has brought more joy to the fans than any other since Joe Mercer OBE.

Any manager of Manchester City from hereon in will always have their achievements devalued by the money factor, so for some it will not matter what a manager of this club wins, it will always have been achieved on an uneven playing field. I sprt of get that, but also would throw into the mix that city now have to manage the sort of problems that the likes of Real Madrid have had since the start of the galactico era - keeping a big squad of top notch players happy is not an easy task as we have seen this season.

Winning the league this season is not (in my opinion) Mancini's hardest task. That will be going on to DOMINATE the league year in year out, and for that he will need one of the qualities that is so rare in managers, longevity, along with an ability to spring surprises in the tough parts of the season rather than just try to beat teams via our superior firepower.

I for one expect that in the next couple of years, Mancini could achieve the first 100 point haul in the premier league with the players at his disposal, but for that he is going to have to evolve and develop as a manager and trust his advisers tactically from time to time.

I dont cite our change in form solely down to tevez as a player, i put it down to the availability of a player who gave us a different type of threat and made us less predictable - because for nearly two months previous, Mancini looked like a rabbit in the headlights at times, completely unable to evolve his team beyond the tactic of overloading on posession. The premier league is harder than that, and any team who has set off like a house on fire has usually been figured out by the end of November if you look back in history - the great teams evolve from there, but we didnt until the final weeks of the season.

My argument is that with the 5 or 6 forward players we had aside from Tevez, predictable was the last thing we ever should have been, and Mancini has to shoulder the responsibility for that and i have to admit this is a nagging doubt for me that i just cant shake off about him. He has won it now, the hardest thing will be for him to do it again and to learn the lessons of this season - which im pretty sure he will do......but again it will always be slightly tainted because those deficiencies which others have to overcome by tactical nous, city will overcome by spending money.

Beefymcfc wrote:
I give up, I'm going to soak it up at the beach and enjoy what the owners, Mancini and the players have done for us. Ice Cream anyone?

BobKowalski wrote:
Been on the beach footballing wise for the last 12 months or so and enjoyed every moment - well apart from the odd hiccup now and then. That people don't like Mancini irrespective of what he achieves at City stopped being relevant for me after we won the FA Cup and is pretty much why I stopped posting on here and elsewhere.

Just let it go, relax and enjoy. Its oddly liberating.

Original Dub wrote:

BobKowalski wrote:
Been on the beach footballing wise for the last 12 months or so and enjoyed every moment - well apart from the odd hiccup now and then. That people don't like Mancini irrespective of what he achieves at City stopped being relevant for me after we won the FA Cup and is pretty much why I stopped posting on here and elsewhere.

Just let it go, relax and enjoy. Its oddly liberating.

Stop again then.

It's oddly liberating when you do :)