i wrote this a couple of weeks ago when the Mancini out calls were at their loudest. It is a long post about the merits of Mancini and Mourinho, but please bear with me:
There has been a lot of talk about changing managers, as it seems many people are dissatisfied with Mancini’s tactics. Cue, the familiar calls for the manager roundabout! This inevitably has lead to many people drooling over the prospect of the self-appointed Special One (or as Ancelotti satirically referred to him “His Speciality”) becoming our next manager in the summer. Now, I have nothing against Mourinho and I actually really like the guy, but I still think that if Mancini gets us 4th spot he should stay.
As I have stated in previous posts, Mancini has shown that he is a winner, and has an illustrious track record of building teams (his success at Fiorentina, Lazio and Inter are testament to that). Most people on Bluemoon seem to see Mourinho as the ultimate figure in world football so let me use his own words to make a couple of points:
Firstly, according to Mourinho it takes 3 months to get a team to play how you want them to, Mancini has barely been here 10 weeks and already so many people have turned on him. What is even more ironic is that they seems to be the same people who wanted Mark Hughes (of 18 months and 200m fame) to be given more time and were shocked/dismayed/(insert any other over the top emotion) that Sheikh Mansour expected better. While I understand that many people may have been misled by the biased press and there anti-city/anti-foreign (unless it is Mourinho or Capello) campaign, let us have some consistency. It has been stated by the City hierarchy that as Hughes spent more money than was envisaged by either him or Sheikh Mansour at the start of the summer that the target was mutually raised from top 6 to 70 points (or top 4), all this talk of changing targets half way through the season is just plain wrong. A lot of people are perplexed by the fact that Hughes was given nigh on 200m to spend on HIS players yet Mancini has yet to be afforded the same luxury. What I think happened was that Khaldoon Al-Mubarak was (wrongly) persuaded, perhaps by Hughes himself, that he was the right man to bring success to the club and all he needed was more time and the green light to buy the players HE wanted (remember all that talk by Cook about Hughes having to learn to live without buying his comfort blanket signings like Santa Cruz, yet lo and behold, Crocky is a City player). Clearly, after 18 months they realised that he was not the right man for the job and rather than blow another 200m and hope things will work out (the ‘throw enough money at the problem and it will sort itself out’ approach), they have, correctly, decided to make sure they have the right manager in place before setting off on another spending spree; it was a case of “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!” Anyone, who thinks Mourinho can just walk into City and make us a winning team overnight is deluding themselves, when it has come straight from the horses mouth that is takes at least 3 months just to get the team to understand how you want them to play, never mind integrating new signings and turning the team into Title contenders. You also have to realise that at both Chelsea and Inter Mourinho inherited very good squads, and in the case of the latter Mancini has already built him a title winning team which all he had to do was maintain. The only place where Mourinho had to actually build his team was at Porto, where he finished 3rd in his first season before winning back to back titles. If people think that the Italian league is poor, I wonder what they think of the Portuguese League! Herein, lies my second point….
Secondly, many on this forum have just discarded Mancini’s success in Italy, and seem to believe there all-conquering feats on Championship Manager are much more impressive! Well, I think most managers will tell you it is pretty tough to manage in Italy, let alone manage one of the best teams and become there most successful manager for the past 30 years! For all you Mourinho lovers, click the link below where he compares the Seria A to the Premiership:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXy5QbyqW8I&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Merits of Mourinho
I know a lot of people believe Mourinho is invincible but whether you like it or not he does have his drawbacks. Someone posted a piece from a Porto fan on Mourinho which is an excellent read. It is undeniable that Mourinho is a bona fide winner and there is not a lot wrong with that; I know many City fans crave success however it comes about but we have to start looking longer term and see if Mourinho really is the right choice. He seems to only stay at clubs for 2-3 years at a time and has a destabilising effect on whatever club he leaves. Although he is loved by the fans, Mourinho does seem to alienate many of his former players. I remember when he was at Chelsea Mackele was saying how Mourinho wins for himself and takes the limelight from his players. Closer to home, he did not seem to have a very good relationship with our very own Bridge and Sweep. He seems to be genuinely loved by Terry and Lampard, but that is probably because he gave them so much importance. I get the feeling a lot of his ex-players admire him for what he has achieved but do not share any great affection for him. As much as I like Mourinho he is a media whore and everything becomes about him and not his football (one of the major criticisms they have of him in Italy). If he comes, he will instantly be bigger than City, and all you will have in the press are Clough-esque ‘one-liners’, criticisms of referees, and controversy! Yes, it will be entertaining but, we will become even more of a media circus than we already are (hardly the impression Sheikh Mansour wants the club to display).
In addition, if Mourinho does come, you can pretty much forget about Aguero, Villa, Kaka, Ribery, Ibrahimovic or any other superstar turning up at Eastlands. Mourinho is the boss, and he does not suffer fools gladly, as the Porto fan said, he buys talented players (not big names) who give there all for HIM on the pitch, and has never managed egos (unless he gave them that ego i.e. Terry) very well (alienated Ibra, Balotelli at Inter, Robben, Shevchenko at Chelsea).
Also, it would not take long for many fans to get on his back, as leaving aside his distaste for flair (his ego more than makes up for it), or fireworks on the pitch (his personality creates fireworks off the pitch) he does make some bizarre tactical decisions which would drive many a Bluemoon-er up the wall. At Chelsea, he sometimes stuck Robert Huth upfront and then instructed his team to proceed to launch long balls up to him, a trick he recently repeated with Materazzi at Inter! Therefore, I suggest we think long and hard about the long term effects of Mourinho at City, before demanding a change of manager.
Mancini
Good mangers can adapt to different leagues, Mourinho had no experience in English football before he took over at Chelsea, Hiddink and Capello have adapted to different leagues and Ancelotti is doing a very good job at Chelsea, an Ancelotti which Mancini beat several times while manager of Inter.
I have already stated previously (please see my other posts) where I think our weaknesses are in the team and how it is encouraging that Mancini recognised these straight away and is making good progress with a disjointed squad so I will not bore you with these arguments again. Suffice to say if you want to see what around 200m+ can buy, look no further than our friends in Madrid.
Hughes
Kompany-6m
Toure-14m
Lescott-24m
Bridge-12m
Bellamy-14m
De Jong-17m
Barry-16m
Santa Cruz-17m
Tevez-25.5m
Adebayor-25m
Total= 170.5m (not including the combined 50m signings of Jo and Robinho)
Madrid
Arebola-4m
Kaka-55m
Ronaldo-80m
Benzema-30m
Raul Albiol-13m
Alonso-25.5
Granero-3.5
Total-211m (bearing in mind they twice broke the world Record transfer fee for a player)
Although a similar amount of money was spent and both teams had a complete overhaul of their squads we are miles behind Los Galácticos 2.0 in terms of quality. If you listened to some people on this forum you would think 200m is not a lot of money with people suggesting we blow “a few hundred million more on players”, or feel “who cares the Sheikh in rich.” I am sorry but even to Sheikh Mansour 200m is an awful lot of money (remember he is spending his own money and cannot just dip into Abu Dhabi’s oil reserves when he feels like buying some more players-see one of my earlier posts):
Firstly, nobody knows the true value of Sheikh Mansour's wealth (as is the case with every other member of the ruling family from any Gulf state). Secondly that figure of $500b+ is a rough estimate of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's assets (again nobody knows the true value as they do not release figures). ADIA is Abu Dhabi's main Sovereign Wealth Fund, it is the emirates money, and a lot of emirati's would be pissed off if any of that money was blown on Man City (it would be like our tax money being given to Lazio or some other foreign club)!
Mancini is making do with the players he has, Mourinho, Hiddink, Capello, Guardiola, del Bosque or any other top manager, would not be able to turn what we have into swash-buckling Barca-esque champions. Mancini admittedly has a relatively weak record in Europe (2 QF’s and a last 16) yet he has done enough with his previous clubs (3 Seria A titles, 4 Coppa Italias, 2 Italian Supercups) to convince me that he deserves more time at City. If we do not finish top 4 this season and next year we are not challenging for the title then calls for the ‘Special One’ may justifiably grow louder but for now I suggest we stick with the One Baciato dalla grazia*!
*’kissed by good fortune’
