BillyShears said:
It's highly unlikely we'll see another midseason sacking unless the wheels come off in a truly spectacular fashion, but it won't change the supporters expectations, and I don't see Mancini getting an easy ride just because he's got to blood six new players. He'll have the best playing squad in the world barring maybe only Madrid's come the start of the season. It's neither over ambitious, nor unrealistic to expect us to be comfortably in the mix for the title all season...any negative deviation from that will lead to justifiable calls for his head...
the strength of our squad remains to be seen....I don't want to burst any bubbles, but I think fans naturally over-estimate the strength of their own teams. strongest bar Madrid? What, Barca are selling Iniesta, Xavi, Messi, Villa? this is a club that can afford to let players like Eto'o, Ronaldinho and Yaya Toure go. We are still at the stage where their nearlies are our diamonds. And they're still signing at least one player the match of anything we (will) have at the club.
Many experts said Inter have a stronger (deeper) squad than Barca, even if they don't have the best player in the world they have the depth. Players like Zanetti are true legends. Bellamy and Kompany wouldn't get within a mile of that bench, let alone Barry, Bridge. Bayern's playing staff is hideously under-rated by the English, guess who had the most players left in the world cup, had the most last week as well? Barca, followed by Bayern. In Bayern's case you could take out the German contingent and still be impressed by the talent they have on show in S.A. Utd and Chelsea are considered on a par with those two. Even poor old Liverpool, Reina, Mascherano, Gerrard, Torres... still extremely attractive to us.
Really, who do we have who gets into Barca or Inter team? The only one that seems a good bet would be Tevez at Inter. And that's it baby. The rest aren't there, yet. If we sign Torres, he'd comfortably be our best player... If Barca sign him he becomes their third, maybe fourth.
One day maybe some of our boys will be true legends but it's all to be proven. Don't tell me SWP and Bridge's winner's medals put them on a par with Zanetti and co.
We are on a fast upwards curve. It's easy to mistake velocity for altitude.
"There will be no sacking barring a disaster" and "The calls for his head will be justifiable"? Justifiable, but futile, pointless? I'm not sure which side of the arguments you are coming down on ;)
My opinion is that management is not an exact science. It's oh so easy to point the finger at a manager when it doesn't quite happen, because there's always an example of someone who is 'doing a better job' We look at Mourinho and say, but he never gets it wrong! Even discounting the pure entropy of his last two seasons at Chelsea, oh yes, he does. He made a balls up of his first season at Inter, dumped all his signings, went back to Mancini's line up, started again the season after (and got it very right). We look at Redknapp and say 'but he's created perfect chemistry at Pompey, and now at Spurs'... well, yeah, there's always going to be someone who's smiling, someone for whom everything has come together. It doesn't make the rest incompetent. No wonder the expectations on managers are unrealistic when the press and public can pick whoever is on top at that exact moment as the bench mark.
The ideal blueprint changes like the seasons.... Strict/Light-touch is a complete red-herring, there have been differing approaches to management since hunting was organised.... neither style has ever been proven to work better. You think Ferg is light touch? United isn't a 'harsh enviroment'? LMFAO. I suppose it worked until last season, when their finishing behind Chelsea was a direct result of his overly strict regime.
Someone wins, someone comes close, someone fails miserably. Fail miserably, and you're out, no point keeping you. Come close too often without winning, and you're in danger of looking limited... but the margins between bubbling under, and getting on top, are so fine... you surely have to have something more than just 'nearly is not good enough' in order to make a move. You need it to be demonstrated pretty conclusively, that something the approach is wrong, can't go any further. You have someone ready who demonstrably has the answers to take you on. And you better be right, otherwise you are Tottenham sacking Martin Jol, and you're going backwards.
We got off lightly with Mancini. despite him not being everyone's cup of tea, we didn't by any stretch of the imagination (or stats) go backwards. None of the rhetoric about him being a 'poor-man manager', means a lot unless we start going backwards, or patently, repeatedly, stops us from achieving our goals.
What's expected of him this year, seems pretty clear. If he gets his transfer targets, we have to mount some sort of challenge. Winning in any year relies on a certain amount of things going your way. Winning in your first year with a new team is crazy stuff, it's just not a reasonable expectation to hang on someone. But showing you are better than those beneath you, picking off a couple of teams who were 'above' you... that's reasonable. A good 3rd would do very nicely. Calling for his head when we're 8th after 6 games, that's for the Henry Winters.
