Damocles said:
Mancini and Khaldoon are good mates IIRC.
Whether we like it or not, this guy is probably our next manager.
I don't understand all of the Hughes Out posters who want to get rid of him now. We can bring in Mancini, Hiddink or whoever now or wait until summer until Mourinho is available. The guy deserves a season at least, otherwise what was the point of backing him for £200m and then sacking him before you get the returns on that?
If the returns don't come this season, and he finishes outside where he needs to, then get rid. Doing so now makes us look like fools, and worst of all, makes us look like we have a bunch of entirely impatient owners who talk a big game about patience and understanding football but are actually just idiots with a bit of cash who knee jerk react to a run of bad results.
I'm not saying that Hughes is the man for the job, but I do believe that the manager we really want isn't going to be available until the summer, so it is a silly idea to remove our current manager before then. He might even come good, you never know. What we do know, is that Hughes won't get us relegated and we there or thereabouts a European spot. If we don't hit the CL this year, then fine, it's still an improvement on last year. Dispose of Hughes and bring in Mourinho.
This period of time is a test of the Sheik and Khaldoon, and we are about to find out if our owners are as reactionary and impatient as some fans are, or have a bit of nouse and plan for the future. There is no benefit to us to getting rid of Hughes now, and only positives for keeping him until the summer.
If I had a choice of CL under Mancini now, and UEFA Cup under Hughes then Mourinho in the summer, I know what I would choose. You can't sack a manager if he gets us to the CL after coming in in January, so we would be cutting off our nose to spite our face.
I've really really want Hughes gone, having said that though i have on several occasions stated like yourself we should wait till the summer to replace Hughes possibly even after the world cup. I was just throwing this thread out there because to be honest with you I'm totally and completely stumped on who we get in to replace Hughes and Mancini seems to be one of thew managers around that seem to fit the criteria (mainly young and won something).
As the next manager we get in i genuinely want to keep for a long time. So as long as the next manager isn't a complete **** that no one likes (Roy Keane, Steve Bruce etc) and he has some credentials to back himself up. I'm absolutely positive they will get much more slack from the fans. As for me Hughes was always set up for failure and his appointment was a HUGE mistake by Garry Cook. Come on you don't appoint a guy that was pretty much universally hated buy your fans base and then expect them to put away that hatred.
People might be able to put away that hatred to the back of there mind, but its always going to be the in the back of there mind. So with the butt stopping with the manager anything that goes wrong is going to push that hatred closer to the front of there mind until it hits a breaking point.
P.S. If you don't believe me about the universal hatred of Hughes, if possible dig out the Match day threads of City V Blackburn under Sven's reign. Hughes gets mercilessly ripped to pieces for his team being a dirt bunch of cheating clogging bastards to him being just a complete and total classless twat.
