BillyShears said:
Damocles said:
I have never spoken to anybody outside of this forum who claims that this is true. Even at the time I asked around and everybody said that it was complete bollocks. This forum seems to be the only place where this is taken as a fact.
I know where the information came from, originally, and more to the point I know why it came out. Let's just say that lots of political manoeuvring was happening at this time and it made lots of sense for certain people to drop this into the press pack. Even then, most of them didn't bite because they saw through it. I raised my objections to the original poster of this in a PM (using more direct language) when it came out and we pretty much agreed that this was brinkmanship rather than actual reality.
The Mancini to Juventus story was high profile enough for him to be asked directly in a press conference whether he had spoken to them about their job, which to be fair he did flatly deny. The point I was making in the above post is that both Mourinho and Mancini are highly political beasts. Mancini and Cook/Marwood had major disagreements about something as both sides were briefing the press towards the end of last season. Funnily enough, it was almost a parallel of the Valdano/Mou situation at Real Madrid. Both managers won those particular battles.
Totally agree, Mancini is the most political astute manager that I'd ever seen. Let's not forget that he pretty much ran Sampdoria when he played there, even sitting in on interviews for the manager position. He knows how to play the game.
People think I was been sarcastic or something before, but I'm not.
If Mancini doesn't win the league, we should sack him and appoint Mourinho.
From this position, anything other than the title would be termed a failure. IF Mourinho wasn't available, I'd totally support keeping Mancini onboard and as always, I'd back him 100%.
But we aren't in the same position as we were two years ago, or even a year ago. I didn't want Mou then as I don't think that he had the necessary attributes to build a squad in the same way that Mancini does. Mou is a cake decorator, not a baker.
Let's be totally honest here; does anyone think that Mourinho would fail to win the league from where we are now?
If it was any other manager in the world, I'd pick Mancini, but Mourinho will bring us instant success and the "project" (which is bigger than Tevez, bigger than Cook, bigger than Mancini and bigger than Mourinho) needs the league as the next logical step in its progression.
I used to want us to sit and do things the right way; to appoint a man that will create a dynasty here. The disorganisation of the youth->first team progression has made me see that this is a big job which needs someone at board level to grab hold of it.
We have time to sort out the youth and that later, the Sheikh doesn't appear to be going anywhere. Right now, for the good of the club and the progression of our growth (financial, football and marketing wise) we need a title.
Mancini has his shot at it this year. I have nothing but 100% faith in the man that he will deliver.
