I can understand why most favoured Mancini over Pellegrini. However Pellegrini got a lot of undeserved stick during his last year while he had to cope with the restictions due to FFPR, an injured Kompany, an aging squad and a goalkeeper (Hart) already sliding down the hill. Many blame him for Bony, but I clearly remember the enthousiasm on here when the player was actually brought in with a good reputation and very much needed at that moment of time. Pellegrini couldn't help Bony hardly getting off a start at all due to sickness and injury he hardly had ever before. Never got in to it afterwards and sold as a complete failure/ Than again, we can all mention at least 20 misfits from that point of view.
It was clear to everyone including Pellegrini, he was a stopgap for Pep to arrive. And even Pep has had his difficulties last year when results weren't that much better than Pellegrini in his last season with us. Easy to forget when the team has been playing some breathtaking football.
Like Mancini Pellegrini was decent in his own way, respectfull to the club and players and he brought silverware, including a title with some fantastic football up until the moment Negredo got injured and was scoring goals for fun.
Top manager.
The players took the piss out of him in the end. Lazy twats, YaYa, Bony, Nasri, Sergio, Kolarov.
Resting on their laurels, and no real effort at the end. Milner alluded to it when he left.
Pep, doesn't have that problem, as his aggressive, 'up for every game' attitude is infectious and he will not suffer fools or lack of effort. They'd be out quicker than you can say Tapas!
That Barcelona side had Suarez, Messi and Neymar in their prime. Almost every coach in football, including Klopp would set up defensively against Real madrid and Barcelona. I forget the details but I can recall a very strong Bayern team under Guardiola trying to attack Real Madrid and Barcelona in the CL semis and getting destroyed amid much recrimination - or media criticism.
When Guardiola came to City, some elements in the media said Guardiola had failed at Bayern because of his Champions League results
How can he be a top manager if he allowed that to happen?
He was clueless and weak and I was very happy when he left, party because pep came in and partly because it just meant pelegrini was out.
He was on a hiding to nothing, given the circumstances, that complacency was inevitable as everyone was aware he was just holding the fort for Pep.
Slightly better than Mancini, far worse than Pep.