Last manager who City fans really wanted sacked

Scaring Europe to Death said:
Hughes was probably the right man at the wrong time, and would arguably have been more successful and popular if he'd replaced Keegan in 2005. His sacking was inevitable from the moment the takeover was announced so I always had a little bit of sympathy for the way he was treated.

Eriksson was a weird one essentially because his reputation seemed far higher than his actual achievements. Indeed, City's performances seemed to mirror his time as England Manager with the occasional moment of magic regularly eclipsed by square pegs in round holes desperately clinging on to a 1-0 lead or looking clueless, disinterested and outmuscled

Pellegrini was too passive and downbeat especially in his last season which seemed to last an eternity.

However, Pearce was on a different level in 2006-07

Plan A Diagonal long ball to the left wing hoping to win a throw-in near the corner flag.
Plan B Diagonal long ball to the right wing hoping to win a throw-in near the corner flag

I wouldn't mind, but we didn't even have anyone who could take a decent corner or a long throw.
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What on earth brings you to that conclusion?

Serious question his record wherever he's been has been absolutely dismal. A rubbish style (if you can call it that) of football.

He was a man who was so up himself he'd disappear up his own arsehole.
 
stonerblue said:
Bond
Click to expand...
Going back in time but yes.... He was the original Hughes but at least he did manage to get us to a Cup Final.

His son was an absolute cart horse. I remember going to Molinuex in 1982... Kevin Bond was trying to give Big Joe an instruction about what to do with the ball. Big Joe was having none of it and it looked like he was set fair to put Bond in the stand. Needless to say we lost 0-4.
 
Pearce was horrific! Hughes was only ever a stop gap and although I didn’t warm to him he did ok. Sven did a solid job. The last 3 have all been title winners so forever have credit in the bank. Pre Hughes (in my lifetime) it was a motley crew.
 
I'd personally had enough of Pellers in his last season. Those 8 draws in a row we had under Hughes made me ambivalent to him going. I was gutted when we sacked Bobby

I don't think Pearce actually was sacked IIRC but he fucking wanted sacking! Keegan was the right time to part ways as was Royle. Anyone else I was a bit too young to have any opinion.
 
BigJoe#1 said:
Going back in time but yes.... He was the original Hughes but at least he did manage to get us to a Cup Final.

His son was an absolute cart horse. I remember going to Molinuex in 1982... Kevin Bond was trying to give Big Joe an instruction about what to do with the ball. Big Joe was having none of it and it looked like he was set fair to put Bond in the stand. Needless to say we lost 0-4.
Click to expand...
Very hazy memory but i recall Kevin being rubbish. Was it Bond Snr who sold our best players to Everton?
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
Hughes was probably the right man at the wrong time, and would arguably have been more successful and popular if he'd replaced Keegan in 2005. His sacking was inevitable from the moment the takeover was announced so I always had a little bit of sympathy for the way he was treated.

Eriksson was a weird one essentially because his reputation seemed far higher than his actual achievements. Indeed, City's performances seemed to mirror his time as England Manager with the occasional moment of magic regularly eclipsed by square pegs in round holes desperately clinging on to a 1-0 lead or looking clueless, disinterested and outmuscled

Pellegrini was too passive and downbeat especially in his last season which seemed to last an eternity.

However, Pearce was on a different level in 2006-07

Plan A Diagonal long ball to the left wing hoping to win a throw-in near the corner flag.
Plan B Diagonal long ball to the right wing hoping to win a throw-in near the corner flag

I wouldn't mind, but we didn't even have anyone who could take a decent corner or a long throw.
Click to expand...
Sort of agree with you about Hughes but not fully.

Agree that, if he'd replaced Keegan, or even replaced Sven without the Sheikh's millions coming in, he'd have kept us solidly mid-table and kept us competitive in lower level European competitions for a bit. We were back in the UEFA Cup before the Sheikh came along anyway, and we got through the groups pretty comfortably without much involvement from Robinho (played and scored against Twente but didn't play against Schalke or PSG) so we might have had a couple of memorable cup runs and his reputation would be similar to Keegan's, most likely.

But I'll be honest, even before we were in the bottom three at Christmas and even before the infamous seven consecutive draws, I used to say to my mum at basically every home game that Hughes never felt like a City manager. Never really connected with the fans, never really felt like part of the club, never really felt at home in the dugout. He never felt like he was our manager because he wanted to be - more because he saw us as a stepping stone to somewhere bigger. Then when we became that "somewhere bigger" he didn't really know what to do.

Despite all that, though, I think he's held in such low esteem by City fans these days not just because spent millions and didn't really make us any better (we finished 9th on 55 points when he came in, when the decision was made to sack him we were 8th on track for 61 points), but because he conspired with his media pals to paint himself sympathetically in the aftermath. City's name was run through the mud - his sacking was the point where the media really turned against us. We showed we were serious and we'd sacrificed one of Fergie's golden boys to do it.

Our fortunes under Eriksson might well have been the same overall but he has the benefit of coming in after Pearce's reign, which, as you noted, is the worst period in the club's post-Maine Road history. Sven stitched a side together on the cheap in about four weeks and somehow had us fighting for Champions League places until the end of January when we'd been among the favourites to go down. Add in the derby double and the fact he was ousted by a mentalist on the run from the law and you can understand why us lot like him more than Hughes, haha.

One thing I'll always remember the Sven season for, though, is that for the first time in my time following City (since 1999) we never dropped into the bottom half of the Premier League during the season. We were still 3rd in November and still 6th in February. Even as results tailed off in the second half of the season - mainly because Elano fancied the winter off - it was a joy to go to City games and have something good to fight for until April/May. I often say that season is the start of the resurrection, when it was obvious the club had potential with the new stadium, more foreign players, good facilities, etc., it just needed the right backer.

Still remember going to home games in the autumn of 2007, coming away with another win, and the fans singing "City are back, City are back, Hello Hello!" all round the ground. It got to the point where a bloke about five rows in front of me had (top) CITY ARE BACK (middle) 07 (bottom) HELLO HELLO printed on the back of his home shirt. I wore that home and away shirt for years afterwards, even during the Mancini days. I dined out on that Elano free-kick against Newcastle until we lifted the FA Cup, lol.
 
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