guv111 wrote:Patrick wrote:We just lost away from home at Chelsea, and had as much chance to win the game as they did for the majority of the game. My view, today was not bad at all. I'm not disrespecting your view, but mine is that we need to stick with a manager for a season or two and see if that works better than changing every time we have a poor run.
Seriously, I'm getting too old and knackered to wait and see if he gets any better. Sven's football was better, and so were his signings for far less money, and in those days we were happy to just finish in the top half of the table. Yes, Sven made mistakes, but not as huge as Mancini's. Any other club than City, Mancini would have bankrupted. He's been like a particularly stupid kid in a sweet shop. Sacking SGE was one of City's biggest mistakes of modern times, and Shinawatra's worst move. Our second worst mistake was hiring Mancini.
Some points....
1.Sven is now managing Leicester City via Mexico, Notts County and the Ivory Coast - a most unlikely quartet and has brought nothing to any of them in the short time spent at each. Hardly a record which suggests he is capable of taking any club of city's current stature to the next level
2. Mancini wouldn't have bankrupted another club as the funds wouldn't have been available to him unless the club wasn't managed correctly by it's chariman and board members - in which case they would be culpable not the manager (e.g. Portsmouth/Redknapp)
3. I think (as is often the case) many people were happy with those Mancini signed in the summer and Jan transfer windows - it's easy to call into question after the event on the back of a poor run of results.
In football nowadays time is too short, everyone wants to see success yesterday and modern day football is no longer living in a real world. It's big business of course and therefore perfect fodder for the media who like to magnify everything to the empth degree, particulalry TV and radio broadcasters such as Sky (breaking news used to be restricted to a world crisis but is now about the starting 11 for a sunday afternoon match aparrently), talkSPORT (a truly awful station) and five live/motd (BBC portay their reporting and coverage as squeaky clean and unbiassed hoping that most people are as stupid as they would like to think). Not to mention the newspaper journo's.
I for one never thought we would be nailed on for champs league, we are up against Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs - all are champs league quality, most (with the exception of Spurs) are consistent performers in this competition, all 3 have been recent finalists, so why should we come from nowwhere and displace them?
Spurs we can, more realistically benchmark ourselves against, not only in success, but equally and perhaps more importantly style of play. The difference? As much as I'm loath to admit it, Twitcher is the real difference and it probably comes down to his experience within the premier league which is vast when compared to Mancini. Redknapp is a good man manager and tactician and knows the English premier league at so many different levels that he is better placed to know how to win by playing good attacking football.
Mancini by contrast is still learning about the premier league, in what is little over a year at City, he is achieving in terms of league position and cups, about what I would expect of him at this stage. He brings a typically Italian approach to the premier league - what else can he do, as mentioned he has no premier league experience! Our owners and their advisors at City had to be aware of this surely!!
I'd rather see us win and play a more attack minded game, at tempo, but Rome really wasn't built in a day and Mancini will need time if he is to adapt his style and gain experience of what the premier league is all about and ultimately enjoy success at City. But time is something in short supply in the modern game, the vultures are likley to swoop in the summer and we could go two MORE steps backward as a club as we strive to take another huge step forwards.
That said Mancini will be a hero if we beat the rags in the semi final before becoming villlan and then sacked in May, after we've lost to Stoke or Bolton in the final. Those who have supported City long enough will know this is something we are all too capable of, irrespective of whoever is
lucky enough to lead us out at Wembley on cup final day!