I disagree.
Any top level coach who hasn’t got the self confidence and minerals to want this job has a lack of mentality. They are already telling you they don’t back themselves and that would manifest in their performance and the players would sense it. You cannot have someone like that in charge of something of global importance.
Isn’t lack of mentality something City go to huge lengths to weed out in any recruitment process?
If you’re a top coach and you’re full of self belief you’d be knocking on the door and begging for this job.
Would we accept a top player we’re looking to sign saying erm I’m not sure yet let me go and have a season at Fulham and I’ll see how I get on?
Would we bollocks. Because their mentality is shit.
For this role, you simply do not bring in a placeholder. You go and get the right man.
That’s a simplification of the situation, which assumes potential candidates would somehow position themselves as not wanting the job because they lack the mentality/confidence to follow Pep - which they of course never would.
The reality is that in any recruitment process, at some point the potential candidate needs to indicate they are available for or are interested in the job - and they just don’t. At that particular moment.
They commit to their current job, and let the people managing the recruitment know they’re flattered, and if the timing was right they’d of course be honoured - but they’re fully committed to their current job, and still have so much to achieve there.
For the moment.
Like signing a new contract with their current club - just like both Luis Enrique and Vinnie have recently done.
And they keep their powder dry til the placeholder is done, then let it be known at that stage that the timing is right and they’re in.
Happens all the time - both inside football, and in other fields/sectors.
I doubt we’d completely rule out either Vinnie or Enrique as future Managers just because they weren’t knocking at the door and begging for the job this summer.
Circumstances mean the timing isn’t right for either, but may well be when we’re next looking.
And if Maresca fails, and we get rid in two years - we’ll be after the best man for the job at that point, and won’t be ruling them out because they weren’t all over like a rash it a couple of years ago.
We didn’t decide Pep was never, ever going to be our Manager because he turned down City and went to Bayern back in 2013.
He was the best man for the job, and we knew it - so we got on with it in the immediate term, and hired him when he was ready.
The same applies here.