Roberto Mancini was asked to lead a revolution – instead he got a revolt
Astronomical wages are infantilising some Manchester City players and the Italian's self-justifications are becoming tinged with paranoia
Roberto Mancini has discovered there can be no smooth road for a manager who replaces one who was unjustly sacked in the eyes of the media, supporters and some players. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA Wire/Press Association Images
Paul Hayward
guardian.co.uk, Sun 7 Nov 2010 00.09 GMT
Comment
Aloofness is an art. Used well it conveys wisdom, authority. Used badly it attracts contempt. Its most corrosive effect is to bring on political blindness in the one using coldness as a tool. The motif of the detached leader who fails to see the mutiny until it's too late runs all the way through literature and is starting to poke out at Manchester City.
"Lies, all rubbish," Roberto Mancini was quoted as saying in an Italian newspaper in response to suggestions his players are revolting. "There were hard discussions with some players, but the team follows me and the results are arriving." City had endured a third consecutive defeat, at Lech Poznan in the Europa League, and Mancini was groping for lines of self-defence. "The tabloids rage against us because City are headed by an Italian," he said. "I'm sorry to say, but the English are nationalists in football."
No need to apologise. The English are indeed nationalists in football, rather like the people of Mancini's homeland, whose clubs hire foreign coaches sparingly and whose national team is always managed by an Italian.
City travel to West Bromwich Albion today and for Mancini's charge of xenophobia to stick Roberto Di Matteo, the Baggies manager, would need to be equally unpopular with his public, and Carlo Ancelotti, at Chelsea, would have to be the subject of all sorts of chauvinistic grumbling at Stamford Bridge. The difference, as Mancini must know, is that Di Matteo and Ancelotti are currently successful Italian coaches while City's manager has just lost three games in a row and has spent most of this campaign variously wagging his finger at players, pulling them out of pubs and trying to stop them erupting. Carlos Tevez, who spoke to team-mates about leaving Eastlands over the summer, and Emmanuel Adebayor, a regular malcontent, are just two of the lavishly-rewarded employees who Mancini has engaged in arm-wrestling. In two weeks he has slumped from 25-1 to 13-8 to be the next Premier League manager sacked.
There is clear and credible first-hand evidence to show an ominous percentage of City players lining up against Mancini's methods: mainly the boot-camp ethos at their training ground and his high-handedness with non‑compliant stars. Some also accuse him of tactical negativity. It is well known by now that he and Craig Bellamy fell out because Mancini wanted his Welsh forward to abandon his meticulous knee-protecting private fitness regimen and follow the drills laid down for the rest of the team.
To Bellamy, this needless homogenisation of preparatory routines jeopardised his fragile knees and his career, and relations deteriorated from there. Tevez, a close friend of Bellamy, was also apparently unconvinced that Mancini was the best man to be spending Abu Dhabi's millions. Throw in the creeping decadence of players caught carousing at student house parties and elsewhere and a picture starts to form of semi-detachment among some City regulars who will not escape the wrath of the club's supporters. They remember countless low-paid journeymen trying harder in the sky blue shirt than some of these multimillionaires currently are.
Plenty of City fans now suspect the astronomical wages are infantilising some of their squad members. Study this season's results and you see that Mancini's side choose when they want to play. Against Chelsea in September they were mighty: a proper match for the muscularity of the champions. When Sheikh Mansour attended his first home game, in August, City swarmed all over Liverpool, winning 3-0. But in the past two weeks they have been beaten 3-0 on their own ground by Arsenal, 2-1 at Wolves and 3-1 in Poland, and Mancini's self-justifications have become tinged with paranoia.
There can be no smooth road, of course, for a manager who replaces one who was unjustly sacked in the eyes of the media, supporters and some players. Mark Hughes, remember, brought eight new faces to the club in the summer before he was dismissed, in December of last year, and however much Mancini floods the squad with his own men a residue of bitterness remains.
Footballers are pragmatists. The memory of Hughes would have been more easily expunged had Mancini adapted more to the will of his players instead of behaving on the training ground like the Grand Old Duke of York.
The vulnerability to attack was there from the start. There are perhaps half a dozen coaches in world football who could handle the unique circumstances at City – the wages, the speed of transition, the ambition – and the feeling has grown with each small revolt that Mancini is not among them, for the simple reason he has insufficient command of his players, and therefore his own fate.
Chelsea's triumphs have coincided with the hiring of three of those super- elite managers: José Mourinho, Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti. Luiz Felipe Scolari was out of his element and Avram Grant under-qualified. When City's controllers fired Hughes they turned their backs on evolution and backed a hunch that Mancini was another Fabio Capello or Ancelotti. That title-winning betting slip will not be torn up yet but it looks less and less like paying out.
Astronomical wages are infantilising some Manchester City players and the Italian's self-justifications are becoming tinged with paranoia
Roberto Mancini has discovered there can be no smooth road for a manager who replaces one who was unjustly sacked in the eyes of the media, supporters and some players. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA Wire/Press Association Images
Paul Hayward
guardian.co.uk, Sun 7 Nov 2010 00.09 GMT
Comment
Aloofness is an art. Used well it conveys wisdom, authority. Used badly it attracts contempt. Its most corrosive effect is to bring on political blindness in the one using coldness as a tool. The motif of the detached leader who fails to see the mutiny until it's too late runs all the way through literature and is starting to poke out at Manchester City.
"Lies, all rubbish," Roberto Mancini was quoted as saying in an Italian newspaper in response to suggestions his players are revolting. "There were hard discussions with some players, but the team follows me and the results are arriving." City had endured a third consecutive defeat, at Lech Poznan in the Europa League, and Mancini was groping for lines of self-defence. "The tabloids rage against us because City are headed by an Italian," he said. "I'm sorry to say, but the English are nationalists in football."
No need to apologise. The English are indeed nationalists in football, rather like the people of Mancini's homeland, whose clubs hire foreign coaches sparingly and whose national team is always managed by an Italian.
City travel to West Bromwich Albion today and for Mancini's charge of xenophobia to stick Roberto Di Matteo, the Baggies manager, would need to be equally unpopular with his public, and Carlo Ancelotti, at Chelsea, would have to be the subject of all sorts of chauvinistic grumbling at Stamford Bridge. The difference, as Mancini must know, is that Di Matteo and Ancelotti are currently successful Italian coaches while City's manager has just lost three games in a row and has spent most of this campaign variously wagging his finger at players, pulling them out of pubs and trying to stop them erupting. Carlos Tevez, who spoke to team-mates about leaving Eastlands over the summer, and Emmanuel Adebayor, a regular malcontent, are just two of the lavishly-rewarded employees who Mancini has engaged in arm-wrestling. In two weeks he has slumped from 25-1 to 13-8 to be the next Premier League manager sacked.
There is clear and credible first-hand evidence to show an ominous percentage of City players lining up against Mancini's methods: mainly the boot-camp ethos at their training ground and his high-handedness with non‑compliant stars. Some also accuse him of tactical negativity. It is well known by now that he and Craig Bellamy fell out because Mancini wanted his Welsh forward to abandon his meticulous knee-protecting private fitness regimen and follow the drills laid down for the rest of the team.
To Bellamy, this needless homogenisation of preparatory routines jeopardised his fragile knees and his career, and relations deteriorated from there. Tevez, a close friend of Bellamy, was also apparently unconvinced that Mancini was the best man to be spending Abu Dhabi's millions. Throw in the creeping decadence of players caught carousing at student house parties and elsewhere and a picture starts to form of semi-detachment among some City regulars who will not escape the wrath of the club's supporters. They remember countless low-paid journeymen trying harder in the sky blue shirt than some of these multimillionaires currently are.
Plenty of City fans now suspect the astronomical wages are infantilising some of their squad members. Study this season's results and you see that Mancini's side choose when they want to play. Against Chelsea in September they were mighty: a proper match for the muscularity of the champions. When Sheikh Mansour attended his first home game, in August, City swarmed all over Liverpool, winning 3-0. But in the past two weeks they have been beaten 3-0 on their own ground by Arsenal, 2-1 at Wolves and 3-1 in Poland, and Mancini's self-justifications have become tinged with paranoia.
There can be no smooth road, of course, for a manager who replaces one who was unjustly sacked in the eyes of the media, supporters and some players. Mark Hughes, remember, brought eight new faces to the club in the summer before he was dismissed, in December of last year, and however much Mancini floods the squad with his own men a residue of bitterness remains.
Footballers are pragmatists. The memory of Hughes would have been more easily expunged had Mancini adapted more to the will of his players instead of behaving on the training ground like the Grand Old Duke of York.
The vulnerability to attack was there from the start. There are perhaps half a dozen coaches in world football who could handle the unique circumstances at City – the wages, the speed of transition, the ambition – and the feeling has grown with each small revolt that Mancini is not among them, for the simple reason he has insufficient command of his players, and therefore his own fate.
Chelsea's triumphs have coincided with the hiring of three of those super- elite managers: José Mourinho, Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti. Luiz Felipe Scolari was out of his element and Avram Grant under-qualified. When City's controllers fired Hughes they turned their backs on evolution and backed a hunch that Mancini was another Fabio Capello or Ancelotti. That title-winning betting slip will not be torn up yet but it looks less and less like paying out.