DoomMerchant wrote:Ted Hughes wrote:Roberto added: "We have a good attack but it is important for us that our strikers, when we've lost the ball, work for their team-mates and defend like midfielders. It is important for the team's balance.
I agree with that 100% but a few months ago, the City manager would have been ripped to pieces on here for a comment like that. I'm delighted he's said it. To me it shows a realistic understanding of the Premier League. You can perhaps afford one lazy twat in the team at a stretch but even that is pushing it.
Hopefully, if he stays, he'll follow that through & the players we sign will have attitude & workrate (2 dirty words a few months back) to go alongside skill & intelligence, rather than the kind of half arsed, backheeling twats some people on here were slagging Hughes for not signing/keeping (so the half arsed twats we had already would be happy & not leave us!)
Or perhaps he'll build the side around Robinho (another demand for the last manager) when he 'gets the best out of him' (guffaw!)
I really like those comments a lot. Very encouraging imo & should help us to decide which of the inevitable transfer rumours, soon to come, are realistic.
There is an ironic element to all this given the board's responses to Hughes and Mancini. i'm starting to feel Mancini's a pragmatic man who will find a way to win in the Premier League. This is a very different story than the anti-lickers rolled out about him by saying he'd be the man who understood how to manage continental players and South Americans and world-class talent in a way that Hughes couldn't. In fact, he's done the opposite. He's focused on formation, teamwork and a bit of graft...with uneven results, but certainly encouraging words and signs.
He's out-Hughesing Hughes in some departments and i hope he keeps thing rolling after the last couple games.
cheers
The out-Hughsing Hughes is well put. There is no question that to succeed at the highest level in the PL and in Europe, talent must be accompanied by industry. Messi is a supreme talent but also puts in a shift for the team. Robinho is a supreme talent and doesn't. One player is in the semi finals of the CL and the other is playing kick-about in the back waters of Brazil.
That Mancini values industry and the team ethic is no surprise either after his putting on and subsequent hauling off of Robinho which was quickly followed by picking him for the big game....against Scunthorpe. Nothing quite says 'fuck off ' then a stint at Scunny. And Robbie duly did. Fuck off that is.
Equally though I didn't see too many people pointing out that our defensive problems early in the season stemed from our inability to defend as a team - as opposed to just leaving it to the poor sods at the back - or our inability to keep our shape or our discipline. Dunne copped a lot of the flak last year and Lescott went from being 'the final piece in the jigsaw' to the 'final nail in Hughes coffin' pdq.
Irrespective of Mancini's long term future or otherwise at City I do think he has demonstrated the need to have a coaching team and manager that understands what is needed at the highest level and has the ability to drum that into the players. Shay Given made the comment that the players have found it difficult with all the 'tactical stuff when all they want to do is play footie'. Well if we want to win the PL and conquer Europe its going take more than just turning up and 'playing a bit of footie'.
Top 4 and beyond is a foreign country. They do things differently there.