Plain Speaking wrote:For me a big difference between Pep and Vieira was intelligence. Pep did not overly rely on his athleticism and physicality, he was a very intelligent player.
Vieira was a world class player but he was sent off many times, would he have the intelligence to compete with the most astute managers in the world?
IMO it's a huge and unnecessary gamble if we ditch MP for an unproven Vieira.
The idea wouldn't be to ditch Pellegrini yet, unless they feel he has given them no choice. It may not even be a plan to give the job to Vieira directly following Pellegrini. He could go somewhere else first, or work with Guardiola if he comes in.
But Pellegrini freely admits that he was a nutter as a player himself & had to work on changing his whole personality, so you've not picked the best example there. Then top of the league currently we have Jose Mourinho; nutter. Prior to that, the top man was one Alex Ferguson; nutter. I don't think Vieira has anything to learn from those two regarding self control.
Vieira seems highly intelligent to me anyhow, & did as a player. He also won trophies & titles at different clubs, in different countries, as opposed to Guardiola.
He may have been over passionate at times, but the way they wound the rags up & beat them to the title, was very clever indeed & also as streetwise as it gets imo. It was clearly nothing to do with Wenger & was led by people like Vieira & Keown. Since they went, Arsenal have been nothing.
Vieira imo would be somewhere between Mancini & Pellegrini. More agressive, occasionally losing it, but generally calm. However you look at it, he is already more qualified than Guardiola was when he got the Barca job.