Danny Taylor's gone and done it now
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It's the 20th anniversary on Wednesday of the day Manchester United, a quarter of a century without a league championship, knew everything had finally fallen into place. The cross from Gary Pallister, the little flick off the nearest Sheffield Wednesday player, Phil King, and that seminal header from Steve Bruce that led to one of the great Old Trafford celebrations: Alex Ferguson, his hair almost chestnut back then, raising his fists and Brian Kidd running on the pitch, then down on his knees, and that huge, emotional release of pent-up frustration.
There have been a lot of those defining moments for Ferguson's teams down the years. Eric Cantona's volley at Newcastle in 1996 was one, Andy Cole's lob against Tottenham in 1999 another. This season, though, it has not been so easy to pick one out. There were still five months to go when Samir Nasri cowered in the wall and Robin van Persie scored the stoppage‑time winner at the Etihad Stadium. Manchester City's supporters have been singing about the team's ability to "fight to the end" ever since Sergio Agüero pulled back his right foot and let fly against QPR last May.
Yet there has been no comeback, or even the hint of one. United have simply worn City down. "Morrer na praia," as José Mourinho calls it. Imagine two people jumping off a boat, a mile from shore. One is a strong swimmer and makes it to the beach. The other chases and chases but just falls further behind. Translated from Portuguese, it is: "Dying on the beach."
It has certainly been an unexpectedly frail defence of the title, all but decided since the second week of February, and it would be naive not to think it makes Roberto Mancini at least slightly vulnerable, bearing in mind the deterioration in results, the ambitions of the people running the club and the fact City are chugging to the finish line, eight points and 17 goals worse off than this stage a year ago.
Managers, like players, can have dips in form and, no matter what Mancini has done in the past, his record of serial achievement and the seriousness with which Ferguson regards him as a rival, it is difficult to sustain an argument that the Italian has had a distinguished season. The experimenting with a three-man defence destabilised a fully functional team. The Mario Balotelli saga does not reflect well on Mancini given his impenetrable belief it would work out, against every other reasoned voice at the club.
There is the permanent sense that all is not quite as it should be behind the scenes and, more than anything, the possibility of an 18-point gulf if they lose Monday's derby, on top of another joyless attempt at getting to grips with the Champions League. However it is dressed up, the decision-makers in Abu Dhabi could be forgiven for expecting more.
Mancini is a streetwise guy and he will know the risks, as he showed this time last year with those long, drawn-out negotiations with Monaco that culminated in him flying to Rome to nail down the finer points of a provisional contract, all on the back of his belief he might be moved on if City did not win the league.
Equally, there is no great appetite among supporters for change and no clear sense that one is planned. The FA Cup is still very much in reach and there is no point replacing Mancini just for the sake of it. The Málaga manager, Manuel Pellegrini, is being prominently mentioned, but would that genuinely be an upgrade? Mourinho will be available but there is a certain of amount of history here bearing in mind City's chief executive, Ferran Soriano, and director of football, Txiki Begiristain, once turned him down at Barcelona, in part because they did not like his habit of fuelling confrontation.
There is also the small matter of a potential job waiting for Mourinho at Chelsea. Ferguson was talking about it quite openly at his press conference on Friday, predicting that Chelsea would make a considerably better fist of the title race if their former manager was back in charge, and it certainly makes sense for Mourinho to avoid City if he fancies the chance of working at Old Trafford two jobs down the line.
was undoubtedly Pep Guardiola's appointment at Bayern Munich but it is clear, too, that City's manager has more trust in Soriano and Begiristain than he did the previous regime (at one point things had become so twisted Mancini became convinced Garry Cook and Brian Marwood were talking deliberately quickly so he would not follow everything they said). The relevant people in Abu Dhabi have, in turn, offered him support and led him to believe there will be a show of force in the transfer market this summer, despite the restrictions of Uefa's financial fair play guidelines. Equally, this is still a club rife with politics. Mancini has conceded, in private, that people being nice to his face does not always mean a great deal in football.
His default setting is to blame Marwood for the club's transfer business and, in particular, missing out on Van Persie. Defender Matija Nastasic has played with distinction, and is surely deserving of a place on the young footballer of the year shortlist. He is, however, the lone success of the players who arrived last summer, whereas two of the other signings, Jack Rodwell and Scott Sinclair, are in danger of becoming synonymous with what has gone wrong. Rodwell has started four league games and had nine different hamstring injuries over the past two seasons. Sinclair has managed two league starts and, since the turn of the year, four substitute appearances. In total, that is 25 minutes of league football in 2013. Or, to put it another way, not even the duration of the first song on Neil Young's latest album.
Mancini is certainly entitled to think City should have brought in better quality. Eden Hazard and Oscar were among the other targets and, at this level, the recruitment of top players, increasing the level of quality and competition, can have the knock-on effect of inspiring the ones who are already there.
Ferguson followed up his first title win by signing Roy Keane. When Ruud van Nistelrooy and Juan Verón arrived at United in 2001, breaking their transfer record twice in quick succession, the club had won three championships in a row. Mourinho spent £111.9m after winning his first title at Chelsea. A team in that position should always look to improve because the alternative is to risk standing still or, worse, the corrosive effects of complacency.
Sadly for City, that appears to be the case if you stop to ask how many of Mancini's players have actually improved this season. There is one obvious choice: Pablo Zabaleta. Maybe two, at a push, if we count Carlos Tevez (albeit his improvement comes from being decent enough to stick around). Gaël Clichy might squeak in. James Milner, possibly. It's a small pot.
Then consider the list of players whose form has declined and it's the bulk of the title-winning team. Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany and Joleon Lescott are among them. David Silva was possibly the outstanding player in England for the first two-thirds of last season but has flickered more sporadically this time. Nasri's decline has probably been the most alarming and an example, perhaps, of how a footballer can lose motivation once a league-winner's medal is in his possession (make no mistake, this is who Mancini means when he talks of players giving "only 50%"). Balotelli was deported back to Italy and Mancini has complained about all his strikers at one point or another. Fernando Torres, a shell of the player he once was, has managed more goals for Chelsea than Tevez, Agüero and Edin Dzeko have for City.
Van Persie has managed more than all of them. Yet Mancini's grievances surrounding the Dutchman do not quite stack up. The reality, however much City might not care to admit it, is that there are occasionally going to be players who prefer the lure of Old Trafford. It happens, it's a fact of football life and it is tempting sometimes to wonder what Mancini's constant references to Van Persie do for the confidence of his forwards, or even whether he cares.