Mancini - Late drama saved me
City boss admits second place finish would have seen him sacked
Roberto Mancini admits he would likely have been given the axe by Manchester City had the club not secured the Premier League title in the most dramatic of fashions last season.
City left it late to claim the top flight crown, with virtually the last kick of the 2011/12 campaign seeing them get their hands on the silverware.
Sergio Aguero pounced to net a stoppage-time winner against Queens Park Rangers on the final day, with a remarkable turnaround in that tie seeing City edge out arch-rivals Manchester United to take first place.
With City's ambitious owners having pumped considerable funding into the club in an effort to see them landing top honours, Mancini concedes that he would probably have found himself out of a job this summer had the previous campaign not stretched to 93 minutes.
"You would probably be talking to a different manager," the Italian said when asked what a second-place finish would have meant.
"But I never think about this. I think we have a very good memory from last season.
Heart
"Football is beautiful for this reason, because anything can happen in one game.
"In the last game, we had 44 chances to score, QPR had three and they scored two goals.
"We had a problem with our heart but in the end it was good.
"But we didn't win the championship in the last few seconds of that game. We won the championship during all of the season because we deserved to win it and we did better than all the other teams."
Pressed on what the targets now are for City after ending their 44-year wait for a top flight title, Mancini added: "Last season our target was to fight for the title until the last game and we did that.
"It's important for us we work well because we want to stay on the top for a long time. We want to stay there for 10 or 15 years."
Doubt he was serious - or if the club would have sacked him - but an interesting quote either way, given discussion on the board around that time.
