Had Sven enjoyed the same level of investment?

[jay_mcfc]

Sven would never had been a success. he was to soft.

<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven-G%C3%B6ran_Eriksson" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven-G%C3%B6ran_Eriksson</a>

Go down to club managerial honours. How the fuck we sacked him for Mark Fucking Hughes I will never know. That man must have some agent because for a guy who has done the grand sum of fuck all as a manager he has had some decent jobs. It still makes my blood boil!

It's debatable what Sven could have done, bearing in mind since he left us he has done nothing. As we know he was brilliant until Christmas then he had a little wobble. By February it was pretty much already decided by Thaksin that Sven would be sacked and it was public knowledge too. No wonder we were so shit after that.

What is for certain, with a few million to spend what he did with that squad that had just given us our worst season since re-joining the prem was miraculous. He gave us hope and a swagger that the fans had needed. Had the Sheikh took over at Christmas instead of the summer who knows what would have happened. Anyway, it's history now and we have gone onto to be successful despite Sparky.

 

[Blue Hefner]

I'm not sure we would have won the league with Sven but what I do know is that if he had have the investment Hughes had to improve the squad we would not have been in the relegation zone at Xmas and we would have finished higher than 10th. We would not have spunked a load of money on Ben-Haim, Bridge, Santa Cruz either

In short I'd rather have Mancini than Sven, or anyone else for that matter but given the investment Hughes had we would have been in a much stronger position for when Mancini came in

 

[Graceyboy]

There were a few factors that were for and against Sven when he came in. When he arrived, he came on a tidal of hope and promises brought about by Thaksins smokescreen. Sven was given a budget that far exceeded anything City had been used to in the past. The previous regime of scrimping and saving and bargain basement loan deals came with it a near non existant scouting system. When Sven took over and had a mandate from Dr S to go out and recruit a team to challenge for the title, he had no background scouts to help in the task of building a team. He turned to super agents to propose players to him. Some very good ones came in (along with some poor ones too) but Sven had no other option. It came clear throughout that season that Sven was managing that team with one hand behind his back and one leg tied to the other. The investment wasn't really there, and moves were afoot to remove him, probably because Thaksin knew he had been rumbled. Facilities and support behind the scenes were threadbare and we were having to mask this to look like we were the next big pheonix to rise.

When Leslie eventually replaced Sven, the one thing Hughes did do very well was set up a superb support structure inc scouts and training facilities. This dragged the club forward very quickly and professionally. This scouting set up however didn't prevent some outragious signings in RSC/BRIDGE et al.

18 months later Mancini arrived, as the owners No 1 choice, with money, with a very good infrastructure set in place to help build on Cluelesses flandering start of a building programme that was going no where. Mancini accelerated the process with some no nonsense management and stereotypical italian defensive organisation.

I think if Sven would of come in at either the points in time of his successors, he would have had a fighting chance of better success. He had the footballing nouse that Hughes didn't, but not the support and money Hughes had, and now Mancini has the Money, support and a footballing nouse to take us forward*

(*This last comment is subjective and not included to detract from the thread topic)

 

[blue10high]

What was that song from a few years ago now?.....''Would have/could have/should have'' i think.

All conjecture and not worth thinking about as we have moved on.Hughes was appointed because Thaskin realised we had no cash and thought he could make a decent fist of keeping us up without any.When the takeover happened the goalposts changed big time.

At the time the jury was out on whether Hughes was the brightest young British manager out there,or one who had reached his level at clubs like Blackburn[No disrespect Blackburn fans.] I think the answer now is a lot clearer....

I have often thought what sort of team would we of had if we had the money we have now with Kevin Keegan, The way he got us playing great football scoring loads of goals ok we let a few in as well, I think everyone would of wanted City to win every game,we will never know.

 

[sergiokun]

He would of left our club in a better state than rag bag Mark Hughes

 

[baildon blue]

I think sven would have done a fine job for us.The only signing he made that was rubbish was Bianchi.The reason are season fell apart in second half of the season was injuries.Plus he beat Bacon face twice

 

[Breaker]

He actually did better than Hughes without the money - he got more points and finished higher in the League than Hughes after that useless twat spent an additional £150m on Sven's squad.

We fell to pieces after xmas under Sven, but before xmas we were in the top 3, and this was the season after Pearce nearly got us relegated! Given the circumstances and the time frame he had, Sven did a remarkable job and it was absolutely scandalous that he lost his job to make way for Hughesless.

Sven might not be on Mancini's level, but he was a lot closer to it than Hughes was, Lesley set us back 3 years in his 18 months in the job.

It always absolutely baffled me the idiots that continued to sing Hughes' name after he'd gone, they seem to have gone rather quiet this season though...

you're forgetting that Hughes got us to the quarterfinals of Europa League first season which cost points in the league considering we didn't really have a deep enough squad at the time to do both, Fulham at home in particular was basically a throwaway in preparation for Hamburg later in the week where we were brilliant, would have surely finished on more points if not for that.

Sven was decent but has done nothing since leaving us and even the second half of his year with us was apalling.

Talking of doing nothing since he left, have you seen the league table recently? To take a promising squad, spend 150m and finish lower in the table with less points is pathetic. Even if we beat a couple of Faroe Island teams in the Europa.

Pound for pound Hughes is the worst manager we've had since Alan Ball.

He did pretty good with Fulham though made a stupid decision in leaving them, we'll see how he ends up at QPR but it's still better than being sacked by Leicester..

Also we've had two goes at Europa since then with far deeper squads and haven't made it that far so clearly it wasn't an easy feat. Still amuses me how much hate he continues to get though after nearly 3 years so carry on makes for amusing reading.

 

[Unknown_Genius]

To answers the threads question, no, in my opinion. He used to be a good manager, but he seems to have lost it. Won nothing since Lazio, and done nothing of any real note, and that was over 10 years ago. We had an excellent start with Sven, until Christmas, when it started to fall apart, and some of the performances were really poor. I know people will point out what went on behind the scenes, but all the same, the proof is in the pudding, and on the pitch it wasn't happening.

 

[True_Blue69]

We would be in our 4th season of Champions League football now if we kept Sven and have won every domestic trophy IMO. Everywhere he managed where he had investment he won things, with Mansours money and his knowledge and ability to attract top players he would have done great things. All my opinion of course.

 

[johnny crossan]

One of the many things we'll never know but I like to think he would have done well.