Different owner, same old Manchester City. Why Sheikh Mansour is no different to Peter Swales
It says everything about Manchester City that the sacking of manager Mark Hughes, with his team in sixth place in the Premier League and preparing for the club’s first semi-final in 28 years, is by no means the most bewildering dismissal in its recent history.
Peter Reid was sacked three games into the 1993-94 season after securing successive top ten finishes, while Mel Machin was shown the door just two months after guiding City to a 5-1 defeat of Manchester United in 1989. The reason? He lacked charisma, according to chairman Peter Swales.
So despite the proud claims of Sheikh Mansour’s senior officials that, under Abu Dhabi ownership, things would be different at City and that patience, rather than panic, would be the ethos, Hughes’s sacking suggests it is merely a case of different owner, same old City.
The Abu Dhabi way is apparently rooted in under-statement, slick professionalism and a nod to the long-term.
If brashness and a ‘live today, pay tomorrow’ outlook defines neighbouring Dubai, Abu Dhabi is the smart kid in class in who is too canny to live by such foolish morals.
That has been the spin, anyway. Sheikh Mansour’s investment has undoubtedly transformed the infra-structure of City, but you cannot change your DNA and Hughes’s sacking shows that the sheikh’s knee jerks just like Swales, Francis Lee and Thaksin Shinawatra before him.
When he issued a public statement following his purchase of the club in Sept 2008, the sheikh claimed that ‘We consider Mark Hughes to be one of the prime assets of the club.’ Time has shown that statement to be hollow.
Chief executive Garry Cook, whose back-channel discussions with Roberto Mancini and Guus Hiddink’s representatives in recent weeks rendered Hughes as a dead man walking, never convinced when attempting to talk up the Welshman.
When asked last month, less than three weeks prior to the Mancini talks, whether moves were afoot to extend Hughes’s contract beyond its remaining 18 months, Cook suggested that ‘maybe that’s a discussion we have in the future.’
By that stage, Hughes was stumbling towards the precipice, suspicious of Cook and Brian Marwood, the chief football operations officer, whose appointment in March was made without Hughes’s backing.
Cook has struggled to earn credibility since leaving a senior position at Nike to work for City in May 2008, yet his services have been retained by Sheikh Mansour, despite him extolling the virtues of Thaksin as a golf partner and accusing AC Milan of ‘bottling’ the failed Kaka transfer in January.
Cook’s moves to unseat Hughes have done little to dispel the notion that he is too crass to succeed in such a high-profile position, but he is the man charged with delivering what Sheikh Mansour wants and attitude ultimately reflects leadership.
A claim by Cook that ‘Mark (Hughes) is from the old school. He would rather overpay for the player he knows than for the player where he’s relying on scouting reports,’ perhaps best summed up Cook and Abu Dhabi.
Hughes, the football man, knew the game and the route to success. That is why Craig Bellamy has thrived and Robinho has bombed.
But his bosses thought differently. They want stardust and success, but Hughes sacking shows that, whatever they end up with, they will do it just like everybody else.
