Mancini on his team selection and The Carling Cup:

[Failsworth_Blue]

Was the CC beneath Jose in his first season with Chelsea???? EXACTLY, he set his stall out to win a trophy and progress from there, he's 10 times the manager Mancini could ever think to be

Did Jose have injuries to 8 players though?

 

[persvenality cult]

To be honest, I think the pressure's getting to Mancini.

At the beginning of the season he seemed pretty comfortable with all kinds of questions. But in the last few days, he's seemed very bothered by the number of games, the relentless press questions, and the fact that he's got so many players unavailable.

I think it all got to him a bit yesterday, and he went over the top with his selection. It almost seemed like he was trying to prove a point about how difficult his job is.

He's said from the beginning of the summer that we want to compete for everything, but the team he put out last night showed he believes that's not actually possible.

But the problem with throwing away the Carling Cup, as others have said, is that it's actually counter-productive, because just ends up heaping MORE pressure on us in the difficult and un-winnable competitions. (The league, Europa League etc..) The Carling Cup was a chance to help us find our feet as a winning side, and a trip to Wembley buys us (and him) some breathing space.

It reminds me a bit of O'Neill throwing away the Europa League 2 seasons ago for the same reason - and look what happened to Villa's league form after that ...

In the meantime, over the road, Ferguson hasn't got the squad to compete in ONE competition, never mind four. But he shuffles his tired old pack, and puts out patchwork teams that do just enough every time, and more importantly, shrugs off the pressure every time.

Mancini better steel himself for the realities of English football, and quickly. Because if Ferguson sees Mancini's feeling the pressure, and starts exploiting it like he did to Benitez, it'll be a slippery slope for him.

HUGE gamble to take at this stage. Didn't come off. Over to you Roberto ...

couple of things I don't really agree with.

the thing about selection.

I don't think it was wilful, so much as it was inevitable.

Once he decided Kompany, Barry, NDJ, Yaya, Kolo, Tevez were all irreplaceable/overplayed and off-limits, who else do you pick?

and why is the Europa unwinnable? I cry defeatism!

 

[Benarbia]

Was the CC beneath Jose in his first season with Chelsea???? EXACTLY, he set his stall out to win a trophy and progress from there, he's 10 times the manager Mancini could ever think to be

Did Jose have injuries to 8 players though?

Who knows, there were still a couple of 1st teamers that could have made all the difference last night

 

[Anonymous]

Was the CC beneath Jose in his first season with Chelsea???? EXACTLY, he set his stall out to win a trophy and progress from there, he's 10 times the manager Mancini could ever think to be

Did Jose have injuries to 8 players though?

Every club has injuries - we're unfortunate that we've got a spate of them at the back, and of course it would have been a 'risk' to play Vincent or Kolo, however that excuse is going to seem pretty hollow unless we actually beat Chelsea on Saturday.

Bernarbia's point about Jose is an excellent one - he pitched up in the premiership and the first thing he did was win the CC by playing his strongest XI in every round, even though they were also in the CL.

Ultimately we won't know until the end of the season whether this exit will matter - but one thing's for sure, we have a manager who is clearly too nervous to take even the smallest risk. At this level, very few managers win anything without taking risks...

 

[mancitytmdanttom]

Which of their games this season have you seen this, furthermore, they were better than us last year and we beat them twice. We've got home advantage and I'd expect us to at least draw. We're a better side on paper that Sunderland and judging by your remarks I'm guessing you know what happened there.

If you do not agree that there is a very real prospect that the current Champions, who have been disposing teams for fun, can beat us on Saturday, fair enough. I'm just not so confident. Even player for player, you'd take their man in the same position over ours.

Why don't u fuck off and support Chelski then - Twat

 

[Soulboy]

To be honest, I think the pressure's getting to Mancini.

At the beginning of the season he seemed pretty comfortable with all kinds of questions. But in the last few days, he's seemed very bothered by the number of games, the relentless press questions, and the fact that he's got so many players unavailable.

I think it all got to him a bit yesterday, and he went over the top with his selection. It almost seemed like he was trying to prove a point about how difficult his job is.

He's said from the beginning of the summer that we want to compete for everything, but the team he put out last night showed he believes that's not actually possible.

But the problem with throwing away the Carling Cup, as others have said, is that it's actually counter-productive, because just ends up heaping MORE pressure on us in the difficult and un-winnable competitions. (The league, Europa League etc..) The Carling Cup was a chance to help us find our feet as a winning side, and a trip to Wembley buys us (and him) some breathing space.

It reminds me a bit of O'Neill throwing away the Europa League 2 seasons ago for the same reason - and look what happened to Villa's league form after that ...

In the meantime, over the road, Ferguson hasn't got the squad to compete in ONE competition, never mind four. But he shuffles his tired old pack, and puts out patchwork teams that do just enough every time, and more importantly, shrugs off the pressure every time.

Mancini better steel himself for the realities of English football, and quickly. Because if Ferguson sees Mancini's feeling the pressure, and starts exploiting it like he did to Benitez, it'll be a slippery slope for him.

HUGE gamble to take at this stage. Didn't come off. Over to you Roberto ...

couple of things I don't really agree with.

the thing about selection.

I don't think it was wilful, so much as it was inevitable.

Once he decided Kompany, Barry, NDJ, Yaya, Kolo, Tevez were all irreplaceable/overplayed and off-limits, who else do you pick?

and why is the Europa unwinnable? I cry defeatism!

Given
Zabaleta Richards Boyata Cunningham
SWP Vieira Milner Johnson
Silva Jo

Is that a better team?

And for those concerned about getting injuries... we suffer more injuries on the training ground than we do in matches!

 

[Anonymous]

People need to calm down.

The Chelsea game IS important to us-it won't be the end of the world if we lose but if we win then it confirms our credentials as contenders.
It will give us a huge amount of self-belief.
If we'd had injuries to the likes of Tevez or Kompany last night we'd have been in real shit for Saturday.

Right or wrong,the manager obviously has his priorities.We'll know the outcome in May.

The only thing last night proved to me is that some of our kids don't look ready for "real" action yet-and that Santa Cruz has now inherited Daley's title of "worst pound for pound buy ever."

 

[Failsworth_Blue]

There are a set of supporters who have remembered for 35 years when we last won the league cup.

To treat the league cup like this is simply unfounded arrogance.

To be honest, I think the pressure's getting to Mancini.

At the beginning of the season he seemed pretty comfortable with all kinds of questions. But in the last few days, he's seemed very bothered by the number of games, the relentless press questions, and the fact that he's got so many players unavailable.

I think it all got to him a bit yesterday, and he went over the top with his selection. It almost seemed like he was trying to prove a point about how difficult his job is.

He's said from the beginning of the summer that we want to compete for everything, but the team he put out last night showed he believes that's not actually possible.

But the problem with throwing away the Carling Cup, as others have said, is that it's actually counter-productive, because just ends up heaping MORE pressure on us in the difficult and un-winnable competitions. (The league, Europa League etc..) The Carling Cup was a chance to help us find our feet as a winning side, and a trip to Wembley buys us (and him) some breathing space.

It reminds me a bit of O'Neill throwing away the Europa League 2 seasons ago for the same reason - and look what happened to Villa's league form after that ...

In the meantime, over the road, Ferguson hasn't got the squad to compete in ONE competition, never mind four. But he shuffles his tired old pack, and puts out patchwork teams that do just enough every time, and more importantly, shrugs off the pressure every time.

Mancini better steel himself for the realities of English football, and quickly. Because if Ferguson sees Mancini's feeling the pressure, and starts exploiting it like he did to Benitez, it'll be a slippery slope for him.

HUGE gamble to take at this stage. Didn't come off. Over to you Roberto ...

Ferguson hasn't got the squad to compete in one compeititon? Since when? Last night he made 11 changes yet still managed to bring in players like Rafael, Anderson, Macheda, Hernadez, Gibson, Park, Brown, Ferdinand. With all due to respect to our squad last night United's squad was much better. The reason why? Injuries. We have got injuries to 8 players at present who would almost certainly be in and around the first team squad come match days. We have the squad to compete in all competitions but we don't have the squad to cope with the amount of injuries we've got at the moment

I know i keep harping on about injuries on here but you have to understand that Mancini felt he couldn't take any chances with our fit first teamers last night because we are down to the bare bones as it especially in defence

 

[persvenality cult]

couple of things I don't really agree with.

the thing about selection.

I don't think it was wilful, so much as it was inevitable.

Once he decided Kompany, Barry, NDJ, Yaya, Kolo, Tevez were all irreplaceable/overplayed and off-limits, who else do you pick?

and why is the Europa unwinnable? I cry defeatism!

Given
Zabaleta Richards Boyata Cunningham
SWP Vieira Milner Johnson
Silva Jo

Is that a better team?

And for those concerned about getting injuries... we suffer more injuries on the training ground than we do in matches!

swp and richards injured.

 

[Failsworth_Blue]

couple of things I don't really agree with.

the thing about selection.

I don't think it was wilful, so much as it was inevitable.

Once he decided Kompany, Barry, NDJ, Yaya, Kolo, Tevez were all irreplaceable/overplayed and off-limits, who else do you pick?

and why is the Europa unwinnable? I cry defeatism!

Given
Zabaleta Richards Boyata Cunningham
SWP Vieira Milner Johnson
Silva Jo

Is that a better team?

And for those concerned about getting injuries... we suffer more injuries on the training ground than we do in matches!

SWP and Richards were injured