I don’t disagree with any of that.
I think Mancini’s problem was he pissed off too many senior players at once and that’s why it went wrong.
I’ll always love the guy though.
Mancini was in a lose, lose scenario. We'd essentially rebuilt the club over 3 seasons, with totally new players, several of whom were very strong characters eg: De Jong, Yaya, Kompany, Tevez, Balotelli, Bellamy, Adebayor etc.
Add a new manager to that, with a new Chairman, CEO, board etc, and there is a power vacuum, with a lot of strong characters trying to fill it.
For example, Ferguson won his power struggle at the end of the 80s, so when his authority was confirmed, he had time to sort out the player hierarchy.
From Bruce, to Keane, to Neville etc, ManUre had time to allow nature to take its course, so the strongest, most respected player rose to the top & succeeded to became captain.
We can see this now at City. However, it took years to organically sort itself out, but Kompany became the popular choice of the fans, the dressing room & the board to become our figurehead. In the early days, there was Yaya next in the player hierarchy, followed by Silva.
Right now & based on seniority, there is Silva, Fernandinho then KDB. This is football's version of Darwin's natural selection, but when Bob was in charge, there was no natural order & we were still trying to find ourselves, so there was bound to be clashes, power plays & people fighting for position.
The fact the club didn't support Bob spoke volumes. However look at the support Pep got from the get go. The very first thing Pep did was to tackle Yaya & his dickhead agent. With the high level support Pep obviously had, this was a battle Yaya was always going to lose.
Conversely, it seems things were very different when Mancini came up against Tevez. Bob didn't get the same support from our bosses & this never sat right with me. Could you imagine the reaction at Old Toilet if Tevez ever tried that with Ferguson? He wouldn't have lasted til the end of the day.
There was also the situation with Kompany in 2012. We'd let the title race slip because Tevez went on his golfing holiday, the Toure brother were gone 6 weeks for the ACN, & Kompany was out injured for weeks. By the time Kompany was nearing fitness, he decided to go on international duty, to play in a series of meaningless friendlies.
Bob was rightly pissed off, because he wanted to use the international break to get Kompany's fitness up to scratch, but Kompany put country before City. So inevitable happens..... Kompany gets injured in the meaningless friendly, & is out injured again! Rumour had it that the club supported Kompany & that confirmed to my all wasn't right. We can't stop a player from playing international football, but we could & should have expressed our displeasure in line with Mancini's.
We now all know that City made an approach to Pep in February 2012, which was warmly received. All was set for Pep to succeed Bob & recreate the Barca triumvate at the Etihad, but by winning the Premier League in such dramatic fashion on the last day of the season, City couldn't be seen to be sacking Mancini, so the Pep plan fell flat.
Pep went to Bayern, & City needed rid of Bob in case he succeeded in building an empire which would make it impossible to find a good reason replace him with Pep.
If City really wanted Mancini long term, they'd have supported Bob, much the same way they supported Pep, but like I said, Pep was always the long term plan, with Pellegrini brought in to be the caretaker & safe pair of hands until the appointed time.
I wish it could have been done differently, but I wouldn't swap Pep for the world. Things would have been very different if Garry Cooke had kept his job, but as it stands it is what it is.
Mancini will always be a legend in my mind, & will always be the man who truly kick started the City revolution.
Forza Mancini
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/pep-guardiola-manchester-city-meet-7286279