Bobby Manc...anyone had a real change of heart ??

[Blueboy Danny]

Always had faith ever since he wore that scarf and generally like the guy, has so much more class than most managers in the premier league.

 

[kippax boy]

This seems to have been missed. But I'm not sure you can be allowed an opinion on Mancini if you don't know that one of our players has been banned for 6 months. Or are getting Kolo and Yaya confused. In which case, Yaya scored the winner in both the semi and the final and was one of our best players last year, so what are you on about! Also it didn't save his job. The owners had publicly backed him. Have you by any chance just been watching MOTD and SSN, because you are just regurgitating their opinions....

Not that I feel I need to justify myself but here goes, I dont watch motd because I go to the games and have a season ticket, I was at the semi and the fa cup final , but didnt bother with charity shield if that is ok with you,
what about you ?
so i feel think i am entitled to an opinion
by balo i meant balottelli
by kolo i meant kolorov our £18 million pound left back from lazio who i like many feel has under performed this year
yes i am well aware that kolo is one of the toure brothers who is suspended, hence when i said kolo playing yesterday , i meant kolorov who replaced clichy
who was injured
i was also at wembly for the full members cup final and the playoff win over gillingham
do you think if we had lost the semi to man u and not made the top 4 Mancini would still be in a job because i dont, how many times have owners ( not ours) publicly backed the manager for the axe suddenly to fall

sorry i wont use shortened names in future in case it causes confusion

To be fair mate, shortening Kolarov to Kolo was going to be confusing for anyone on here. Surely you can see that. It's a bit like shortening Greg Cunningham to **** and letting everyone assume you meant Adebayor.

Not quite but I have learnt my harsh lesson, the main mistake was thinking kolarov was spelt kolorov hence kolo,when should have been kola,
Ah well still stand by my views on Mancini ( if I am allowed to have any) warming to him , thought he turned it round big style at the end of the season , but the acid test will be teams like Tottenham, they got battered by the rags last night , but last year they battered us in the first game of the season.
Still think some of Mancinis buys need to come good and I would include Milner in the list of Ballotelli,kolarov and Dzeko.
Pleased with this years buys though , hope we can add Nasri.
I also question if Mancini could have done more with the players that have been outcast,but I accept that we dont know wha goes on behind closed doors at the club

 

[Stoned Rose]

I was really unsure of him until xmas time last season. Since then he's put me firmly in my place and rinsed me to death. A superb manager, very tactically astute and an excellent man manager.

Love him to bits now :)

 

[samharris]

From the off Ive supported Bobby,Edin,&Balo..Have always stuck up for them and will continue to do so..

Balo will do the biz..

 

[levets]

This seems to have been missed. But I'm not sure you can be allowed an opinion on Mancini if you don't know that one of our players has been banned for 6 months. Or are getting Kolo and Yaya confused. In which case, Yaya scored the winner in both the semi and the final and was one of our best players last year, so what are you on about! Also it didn't save his job. The owners had publicly backed him. Have you by any chance just been watching MOTD and SSN, because you are just regurgitating their opinions....

Not that I feel I need to justify myself but here goes, I dont watch motd because I go to the games and have a season ticket, I was at the semi and the fa cup final , but didnt bother with charity shield if that is ok with you,
what about you ?
so i feel think i am entitled to an opinion
by balo i meant balottelli
by kolo i meant kolorov our £18 million pound left back from lazio who i like many feel has under performed this year
yes i am well aware that kolo is one of the toure brothers who is suspended, hence when i said kolo playing yesterday , i meant kolorov who replaced clichy
who was injured
i was also at wembly for the full members cup final and the playoff win over gillingham
do you think if we had lost the semi to man u and not made the top 4 Mancini would still be in a job because i dont, how many times have owners ( not ours) publicly backed the manager for the axe suddenly to fall

sorry i wont use shortened names in future in case it causes confusion

To be fair mate, shortening Kolarov to Kolo was going to be confusing for anyone on here. Surely you can see that. It's a bit like shortening Greg Cunningham to **** and letting everyone assume you meant Adebayor.

Try KOLA.... I thought you meant Kolarov

 

[Berkovic_blue]

As I'm sure everybody knows I've always been one of Mancini's biggest supporters, however, I would think that most of his detractors would feel vindicated.

There's only a very small number of people who said that Mancini was an incapable manager (and we all know who they are), most of the people criticising him in the past like De Niro always said that we'd be much more successful once he releases the shackles on the players. Not that he was personally a poor manager, but that he was too cautious in his approach.

As we're 2 games in and having won 2 after releasing the shackles, it seems that they were correct.

He did the exact same at Inter when he took over. Played ultra cautious until he got his squad together, then played ultra aggressive and won the league. However, he played a little TOO attacking at Inter, so hopefully he can learn his lesson and find a happy medium.

Well, not really.

Mancini has steadily evolved his tactics since he joined the club imo. It's not as simple as just coming in and going gung ho immediately, Hughes had already tried that. So if you're trying to say his detractors were sage-like all along then I completely disagree

 

[TBooksbluearmy]

The way RM wants us to play football reminds me alot of the way the late Joe Mercer and the late Malcolm Alison like to play football. Long may it continue, this will certainly put bums on the seats at the Etihad Stadium.

 

[MotownBlue]

I posted the following on February 13, 2011, one day after losing to the Rags at the Swamp:

This thing is a process. It's not just winning and grabbing more points because we spent tons of money on good players. That is an oversimplification. We need to settle on a side, keep it healthy and build chemistry. That's internal. That's player assessment, transfers and training. That chemistry then needs to carry over on match day and we need to LEARN how to play confident football CONSISTENTLY. The side needs to embrace and build a mentality that has as few cracks as possible. It all takes TIME. I never believed we would win the League this year. If I remember back in August, most of us wanted to see this building process continue and finish Fourth to get to CL. A Cup win, Europa or FA, would be a bonus. Yes, some of you could jump on here and tell me that you wanted or expected it all this season, but please admit you were in the minority. 4th and CL was our overall standard of success before it all kicked off.

We also went into the season thinking we had certain players and were moving toward a certain lineup. Could we mostly agree that back then, before the first window closed, we were thinking of a variant in some sense on this:

STARTING CHOOSE FROM:
HART
BOETANG/KOLO/VK/KOLAROV
NDJ
AJ/YAYA/MILNER/BARRY
SILVA
TEVEZ/MARIO/ADE

DUMP THE UNUSED IN WITH THESE OTHER SUBS:
GIVEN
LESCOTT/ZABS/BOYATA
VIERA/SWP/MJ
JO/RSC

Look, we could argue about who needs to start or who was going to be available for subs and whatever, but it comes down to this: We were going to be able to play Boetang and Kolarov on the outside as backs and we were going to see them overlap and help push forward while still getting back to cover their backsides. Vinnie and whoever to police the center of the back. Nige plays hard ass and swings the door. Two wingers, at least one expected to play box to box. Silva stirs the drink. Strikers poach.

We never got to see that. Period. For lots of reasons, we never had a chance to really develop that look of that side with that mentality. There have been too many injuries to allow any of it to flourish.

Yes, I know all that shit about how injuries are a reality and how a side needs to adjust. The core of the development however, from what I could see, was toward a ball-on-the-deck, better passing side that was defensive minded enough to deliver clean sheets and fluid enough going forward to cut defenses open or run lethal counterattacks, whichever was logical based on the run of play. In this respect it has been especially hard, as others have pointed out, to cut teams open when they have played behind the ball to bunker against us. The meshing needed to solve this puzzle comes with time on the pitch together. We haven't had it consistently with a consistent roster.

I believe that if we had been given time with this pool of players all basically match fit, we might have seen less points dropped on days we shouldn't have done. Think of how much has been done to patch a philosophy (not a side of bodies, but an idea tactically) together. I'm not going to bring up every injury and its associated effect, but let's just take the latest biggie:

AJ goes down for the foreseeable future - not ten days or some short time. There is no-one else to play a wide mid role. You can say all you want about how this could have been addressed in the January window, but it wasn't and I, for one, am glad we didn't go out and splash more cash. BOLLOCKS. Let's see what we have, instead. This ain't Football Manager 2011. Anyway, what happens? Kolarov, who is JUST NOW getting comfortable at LB and beginning to show what he is (and yes, also isn't) capable of out there, gets moved into a midfield role to fill a need. Hence, we lost a valuable, regular player and replaced him by moving someone who is in development out of position. Like I said, I won't go off about all the injuries and adjustments but I hope you see my point.

Also, you can't build a healthy strike partnership without two healthy strikers playing together for some time. I feel I have seen quite a bit of evidence during good stretches of play when Tevez has had either Mario or Dzeko with him that the other striker can create more space for Carlos (and Silva) if this is given time. Bobby hasn't had the opportunity to let this grow due to injuries, so his best option has remained a starting side where Tevez plays alone up front with Silva roaming.

OK, long-winded first part over. Sorry!

To win the League, you MUST beat every team you consider to be beneath you every time. We haven't done this yet. We are still learning how to be that kind of side. ManUre, Chelsea and the Arse have had waaaaay more time together creating this attitude as a unit, and it shows. They play to beat everyone except maybe the "big four" type sides, both home and away. Against the other biggies, they play to win at home and win on the road, but also accept a well-fought point earned on a draw there. We haven't faded from contention because Shrek rose up and pulled off a stroke of magic to tilt an even derby match. As many of you have said, it is drawing Birmingham TWICE and Stoke at the death once. That's six points lost. Wolves at Molineux cost 3 points as well, but I could name some other sides who have been chinned by them. Villa was also three points lost less than a month after we drubbed them 4-0, but the voodoo was bound to strike with Bent fresh off the transfer (I was WAITING for that fucking goal).

So, let's say you add in the six points off draws to the sides we were SUPPOSED to beat because that's what top sides go out and do consistently. We'd sit second between the Rags and the Arse, totally in the mix for the title. Add three points from either Wolves or Villa, and behold, we sit top of the league. You can tell me that this is too much to ask, but if you are going to say you want the title then this is what you must do!

So, we aren't out of the running because we aren't pulling the sacred double off ManUre, it's because we have bottled it against low-table sides. We've bottled it against lower table sides because we have NEVER had a consistent, healthy pool of players to field. These aren't excuses, they are reality this season. Nothing more, nothing less. This is a process, and it will take time. Look at the results since August and think of the great matches we have seen, and the consistent stretches of quality play that have made us proud. If we reach back, grab our collective stones, and use our growing cohesion to take the necessary points, we will finish fourth, go CL next year, and enjoy a raucous summer of surgically-chosen transfers to fill the few cracks we have.

Then next year, it's gonna get fucking nuts!

I believe it in my heart, and I never felt more like Singin' the Blues. Sorry for being a windbag...

CTID

Now, at the time I was convinced that Bobby knew how he wanted to play, but I felt that he was holding back because he really didn't yet have the horses for his kind of run. Remember, we had injuries and other factors last season that dictated that he handle the squad a certain way. Now, six months and a few more transfers later, I am confident that he is ready to RUN.

Mostly, I see a much more fluid overlap developing in our style. That took players and time. I was overjoyed whilst watching the match against Bolton at the sight of Milner bombing forward from out wide. Johnno came on late and did the same thing.

I constantly wonder about the "Tevez Factor" right now. Were some posters on here correct and was Carlos sometimes too selfish? I don't just mean with the ball at feet. He tended to track back a lot and look to take the ball forward himself as early as possible. This seemed to stifle Silva's style a bit. The first two games this season (and I think we need to remember that we have played Swansea and Bolton, not Rags and Spuds), I see the forwards pushing up more, leaving holes for Silva to drop into and track back into with the ball at feet when he is closed down. The stretching caused by Aguero and Dzeko, I feel, has also allowed for more room on the wing and thus, Milner and Johnno bombing forward from out wide.

Anyway, I do not think that these first two games are a mirage or misleading in any way. Mancini has his kind of squad now. He ingrained defencive responsibility into the side first, and now he can begin to attack with more gusto as his players knit themselves into a much more cohesive team.

I always said last spring that next year it's gonna get fucking nuts. Well, it's next year now and I think I might have been right...

CTID

 

[SalfordCityBlue]

Well, not really.

Mancini has steadily evolved his tactics since he joined the club imo. It's not as simple as just coming in and going gung ho immediately, Hughes had already tried that. So if you're trying to say his detractors were sage-like all along then I completely disagree

Me too, but I took the spirit of the post as an attempt to throw the 'detractors' a bone and allow them to retreat from a horribly incorrect position with some dignity?

Which I'm all for. What's done is done, and I can't imagine there is a single City fan who isn't excited about a future under Mancini anymore?

We're all City fans and it's great to see us united again (yes, I did use that word, no I am not talking about Man United)