Didsbury Dave said:
Why do you want more "communication" from Soriano in particular?
Just to frame your answer, can you please let us know what your opinion is of him at the moment. You could even test my theory out by letting us know your opinion on Cook.
I don't see how it adds to the debate, but OK.
I thought Cook was OK for where we were at the time. Quirky, prone to some stupid mistakes, one of which was, sooner or later, likely to get him fired. Spent time with the fanbase and was generally liked because of it. Not all the fanbase has the intellectual greatness of some on here and actually like that contact. Actually did a good job growing revenues, but he would have been replaced sooner or later anyway I guess. Before you ask, yes I liked Mancini. I am not sure I liked the way he went and the aftermath, but my personal feeling is that he had to go the summer before. He was never going to work with Begiristain and Soriano and the year that followed was a consequence.
Soriano is clearly a very clever man. I don't like management consultants very much but that is my problem, not his. He was obviously successful in his Economy VP role at Barca, he clearly wasn't successful at Spanair.
I don't like "The ball doesn't go in by chance" very much, sounds pretentious a little, but maybe he is pretentious. I don't like the word "holistic" in a football sense, it's just management speak. Clearly though, a successful organisation is key to success on the pitch, as is the integration of on- and off-field operations, so I can't disagree with the concept. For the rest, I worked in a Euro-political business environment for more than 20 years so I recognise political manoeuvering when I see it. I saw it after Mancini left, I saw it in the leaked stories about the poor performance of certain players, amongst others. I see Soriano's influence on that. Don't like it much. I think I have a pretty good understanding of his role and that of Begiristain, which seems to be a pet complaint around here. I have worked directly with some of the Messis of some leading global businesses and have been disappointed with pretty much all of them personally. Same goes for billionaire owners, by the way. At the end of the day, I will judge Soriano by what he does for City, not on what he has achieved before.
These are the impressions I have, I may be wrong, I don't know either of them personally. But you asked.