Another good piece by Martin Samuel

[badmash]

Phil Jones in the best 11 between the 2 teams???

Sling it Martin

 

[the blue panther]

Phil Jones in the best 11 between the 2 teams???

Sling it Martin

Exactly!! Good piece my arse! A nice early obituary for our title chances and Mancini, and his tongue straight up Fergie's arse

The full backs bit was a load of bollox too.

It's a funny old game, football - what if it turns round and we win the league? I know, on present form there's more chance of us being caught by Arsenal. But, wouldn't it be lovely if we could pull it out of the fire? Then what would he write?

 

[Greenjob]

Tbf, Samuels does try to make good argument on many things. He attempts to be unilaterlal in his opinion it's a pity he works at the Daily Mail. However, on this subject he is spot on and lets hope that Chairman Kaldoon and the great Sheik Mansour are of the same opinion.

Mancini will improve as a manager now that he has had a good grounding in the EPL, no point in changing him like for like. Though I would suggest that he should consider his aides (Platt and Kidd) and their part in the whole season's campaign!!

 

[Toon Exile]

He rates Guardiola too high for my taste in that article.

Guardiola is doing brilliant job in Barcelona but he never proved himself but with a team that has 3 of World's best 4 players in last few years.

Nobody doesn't know or have any idea what he would produce in some other team.

This is what winds me up with all the Pro-Jose fans. Jose did well at Porto but lets not forget thats not the most competitive league, this allows for players to be rested for europe etc.

From there to Chelsea with a decent squad, Lampard and Terry in their pomp and millions to spend.

Inter - millions to spend in a corrupt league with a competitve side

Madrid - Millions and Millions spent

In my opinion take most m,anagers and they would have deklivered a degree of success with the funds available and the talent already at these teams, Mourinho also plays football I would never want to pay to watch. Chelsea were awful to watch, and the way he sets up against Barcelona is exactly the way some fans cry with the way Mancini sets up- frightened agaist conceading rather than worrying about putting the ball in the net.

Manci has won us a trophy, progressed us to a least runners up, assembled a decent squad and given us a great season to watch. It aint his fault that Tevez and Balotelli are class A twats.

 

[Anonymous]

I like Samuel generally, but this is a poorly thought out piece. Lets himself down hugely by trying to argue that United's squad is much stronger than ours. Lets himself down by suggesting that Guardiola and Mourinho are on the same level, when in actual fact Guardiola falls into the same category as the likes of Klopp, Biesla, and even AVB.

There's an agenda at play here too IMO. Samuel is the only journalist to be given an extended sit down interview with Mancini. Stands to reason he'd write a poorly disguised anti Mourinho article. People who see these "must keep Mancini" articles in the press as pro City are missing the point entirely. They're setting themselves up to lambast our owners and compare them to Roman and Chelsea if the manager is moved on.

 

[johnny crossan]

I like Samuel generally, but this is a poorly thought out piece. Lets himself down hugely by trying to argue that United's squad is much stronger than ours. Lets himself down by suggesting that Guardiola and Mourinho are on the same level, when in actual fact Guardiola falls into the same category as the likes of Klopp, Biesla, and even AVB.

There's an agenda at play here too IMO. Samuel is the only journalist to be given an extended sit down interview with Mancini. Stands to reason he'd write a poorly disguised anti Mourinho article. People who see these "must keep Mancini" articles in the press as pro City are missing the point entirely. They're setting themselves up to lambast our owners and compare them to Roman and Chelsea if the manager is moved on.

loved the first para then my hopes were dashed

 

[Toon Exile]

I like Samuel generally, but this is a poorly thought out piece. Lets himself down hugely by trying to argue that United's squad is much stronger than ours. Lets himself down by suggesting that Guardiola and Mourinho are on the same level, when in actual fact Guardiola falls into the same category as the likes of Klopp, Biesla, and even AVB.

There's an agenda at play here too IMO. Samuel is the only journalist to be given an extended sit down interview with Mancini. Stands to reason he'd write a poorly disguised anti Mourinho article. People who see these "must keep Mancini" articles in the press as pro City are missing the point entirely. They're setting themselves up to lambast our owners and compare them to Roman and Chelsea if the manager is moved on.

In fairness if Mancini leaves it does look like de ja vu looking at chelsea, its the whole, club gets rich and goes through managers like underwear unless they win the league straight away. I like Mancini and hope he stays for stability.

 

[Anonymous]

In fairness if Mancini leaves it does look like de ja vu looking at chelsea, its the whole, club gets rich and goes through managers like underwear unless they win the league straight away. I like Mancini and hope he stays for stability.

I disagree. Roman's attitude to Chelsea is completely different on every level to the way our owners deal with our club. First and foremost, you don't see our owners going out and choosing the players for the manager. You also don't see them making knee jerk decisions. They could have easily sacked Mancini after his first half season in charge, arguing that his objective was to finish in the top 4, and that he failed. Two and half season is long enough to judge a manager's relative abilities. In our clamour for stability we sometimes forget that this is a results driven business. Sheikh Mansour didn't come into the club to build organically over a period of time. He spent a small fortune to get to the top table quickly. In that context, this season will have been one of great disappointment when you look at our failure to get very far in any cup competition and our failure to win the title from a position of relative strength eight weeks ago.

Of course there is always an argument for stability and I have no doubt that should Mancini be given another season we won't get worse, and will be there or thereabouts. The question the owners will surely be asking themselves, and it's something I've repeated often enough in the last week or so, is whether Mancini is getting the best out of the players he has at his disposal. That's a much more important question than whether we finish first or second in the context of Mancini keeping his job. You can't win everything every season, so the cup/league disappointment can be tempered if you have belief that the manager is going in the right direction. I think the change in the wind even on this forum suggests people are beginning to question this.

 

[johnny crossan]

.. The question the owners will surely be asking themselves, and it's something I've repeated often enough in the last week or so, is whether Mancini is getting the best out of the players he has at his disposal. That's a much more important question than whether we finish first or second in the context of Mancini keeping his job...

That's the key issue I think, will Roberto learn from his and others' mistakes? I think he's got the bottle to sort the players he has brought in who aren't up to it (Dzeko, Savic & Kolarov) and also those who he has inherited who aren't up for it (de Jong, Johnson, Kolo) together with the obvious problems (Tevez, Balotelli & Adebayor.)

 

[smiles]

So to summerise, Mou and Pep are top manager's and Samuel rates the Utd squad more highly than the City squad.