The problems started last summer, when Mancini was courting other teams, one of them Monaco. I can't imagine the owners and board reacted to that well at all. The club are well within their rights to look at other prospective managers after knowing that. Mancini has been criticising certain people within (Marwood, the biggest target) for the summer transfers, and his rant yesterday was the final straw, even though I think they had decided way before then. You can probably get away with having a few pops, if you're delivering on the pitch, but if you're not then you're on thin ice. The way this has been handled could have been done better, but to make out Mancini is completely innocent in this, is wrong. We've gone backwards this season, and he's taken some of his anger out at people higher up, bad combination.
Stop the Chelsea comparisons. Mancini was the first manager the owners appointed. Hughes, who wasn't their man, was given a chance. They could have sacked him after the West Brom defeat which put us in the relegation zone, after the 3-0 home defeat in the FA Cup to Notts Forest, or at the end of the season (after finishing lower than the previous one, with loads more money spent) and getting their man, but they didn't. Mancini has been here 3 and a half years, after Ferguson, Wenger, Moyes, Pulis, and Martinez, he's the sixth longest serving manager in the League.