To achieve his publicly stated target of Champions League. For those who think this was an overly demanding target, he has also failed to achieve his publicly stated points target of 70. If we lose to West Ham he will just about hit Hughes's original target of 6th. I agree with those who said sacking Mancini (or failing to activate the option of 3 more years) if he had achieved 4th, would have been bad for the image of the club, so it follows to me that his removal for not achieving his targets would present no such problems. I know some of you like him, fair enough. To my mind (notable victory at Chelsea and decent win against Villa apart) he failed against every top side he played. 1-0 at home to United, 2-0 at home to Everton, 1-0 at home to Spurs, 0-0 at home to Liverpool, 0-0 at Arsenal, 2-0 at Everton. Okay, all teams lose games, but these games all have one thing in common, no more than two shots on goal in each of them. Not good enough. So 'who comes in then?' I hear you cry. Mancini fans gleefully tell us Mourinho is Madrid bound. I think that's wishful thinking, and we should move heaven and earth to bring him here. What about potential targets closer to home? Wenger ready for a fresh challenge yet? What about Roy Hodgson? O'neill? Moyes? Not my problem really, but there's plenty out there ready, willing and able to take this club forward. I know I'll be accused of being part of a 'cabal' or of some sort of kneejerk reaction to last night. Neither accusation is true. I've been broadly supportive of Mancini while he was on target for Fourth, and I've suffered enough disappointments over the years to have already put last nights in the box marked 'Typical City'. Seen plenty of stuff supportive of Mancini, and just though a rival perspective deserved an airing.
