blueinsa said:
Blueroses said:
Watch out for the times backpages Duncan castles ... tomorrow at
???
Spill of you know what the report is
Pellegrini earmarked to take over at the Etihad
Malaga's Chilean coach on his way to Man City, with Mancini set to pay for a season of failure in League and Cup
AFTER losing the FA Cup final to relegation-threatened Wigan Athletic, Roberto Mancini is expected to lose his job as manager of Manchester City, with the Malaga coach Manuel Pellegrini waiting to take over.
City, who are owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group, say they intend to formally review their Italian manager’s performance at the end of a Premier League season which saw them cede the title to neighbours Manchester United and top that with the disappointment of losing an FA Cup final for which they were 2-5 favourites before kick-off.
Behind the scenes a contract has already been placed before Pellegrini. According to sources close to the Chilean, Pellegrini has verbally agreed to take over from Mancini once City exercise a £3.3m release clause in his contract with the Champions League quarter-finalists.
“I don’t think any of us really want to leave Malaga,” said Pellegrini yesterday. “Everyone would prefer to stay but, unfortunately, the circumstances we are in do not allow that.”
It is understood that City exchanged contracts with Pellegrini’s lawyers last week, though the deal has yet to be formally signed. Inherently conservative in their approach to such matters, the fact that City’s owners have accelerated their courtship of the Chilean in cup final week is in part a response to competing interest from elsewhere, particularly from Barcelona.
Early last week, Barcelona directors asked to be informed of Pellegrini’s intentions for next season amid concerns over Tito Vilanova’s ability to carry on as coach because of continuing health problems.
When one of City’s new Spain-based employees learnt of Barça’s approach he immediately moved to avoid losing the South American to the La Liga champions-elect. According to sources close to Rafael Benitez they also contacted Chelsea’s interim manager as a fallback option.
Though City’s board met yesterday morning, senior City officials declined to confirm or deny that the deal was in place with Pellegrini. They did, however, admit that Mancini’s performance was under review by the club’s owner, Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who heads the Abu Dhabi United Group, after a season in which the best-paid squad English football has ever seen was knocked out of the Champions League at the group stage and meekly surrendered the Premier League title to United.
City’s Spanish executives Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain have been preparing to replace Mancini as manager for months. In February, The Sunday Times reported that the pair had told Pellegrini he was their preferred candidate after the double Champions League winner Pep Guardiola rejected their overtures and decided to join Bayern Munich ahead of City for the 2013-14 season. Though the Chilean initially told Begiristain and Soriano that he had committed himself to another club for next season, the pair persevered, improved their provisional offer to the coach and convinced him to choose City ahead of other offers. The process of persuading Pellegrini involved demonstrating that the Manchester club was a far more stable working environment than Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea, who had also sounded out the 59-year-old.
Throughout their search for a new coach, City's director of football and chief executive have been aware that they needed to persuade their Abu Dhabi employers that dismissing Mancini was the correct strategy to improve the team’s on-field performance and that they could present a superior candidate.
The basis of Mancini’s power at the Etihad stadium has always been his relationship with the principal owner, Sheikh Mansour, and the club chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
Pellegrini, Jose Mourinho’s predecessor at Real Madrid, established himself as one of European football’s most astute coaches during a five-year spell in which he led Villarreal to a Champions League semi-final and a runners-up La Liga finish.
At Malaga, with a squad diminished by severe financial cutbacks, he was seconds from eliminating the eventual finalists Borussia Dortmund from the Champions League earlier this season, only for the Germans to qualify after a goal in stoppage time that looked blatantly offside .
