Was it all a big mistake

Nope, the only mistake in my opinion was trying to squeeze one more season out of too many people, Pellegrini chief amongst them. Had we let him go last summer then I don't think you would argue with the rebuilding job we'd done in his two years.
 
Saying we only won the league in 2014 because of Gerrard’s slip is as ridiculous as saying we only one it in 2012 because the rags gave up a two goal lead at home to Everton. You could just as easily argue that Liverpool only nearly won it because of Kompany’s error at Anfield or the ref failing to spot a nailed on penalty. Every league title that’s won by a small margin is determined by mistakes.

Pellegrini has served up some of the best football I’ve ever seen in the premier league let alone at City. His flaws and tactical intransigence have become obvious but that doesn’t detract from his achievements and he probably could have had more support in building the squad. It’s not his doing that we have four full backs over the age of 30 and the only investment in our midfield was Delph despite the obvious need to deal with the fact that Toure has been in decline since the last World Cup. Even in his first season the really major signings were Negrado, Jovetic, Navas and Fenandinho. Good players, but by contrast Mancini got Toure, Silva, Aguero and Dzeko at their peak.

The double think required to believe that Mancini would have been any better is remarkable. He alienated virtually everyone at the club, had no interest in what his paymasters wanted to achieve and refused to work within the confines of financial fair-play. That’s not to get into falling out with the doctor who kept injuries to a minimum, lying about the Tevez incident, scrapping with Balotelli in training despite refusing to sell him or drafting resignation letters at the drop of a hat. Any organisation who had someone like that would get rid. He was the right man in 2010 as the FA Cup and Premier League showed but our performances in the champions league illustrated that his tactical nous wasn’t overwhelming. Nothing in his time at Galatasaray or Inter suggests he could have taken us any further forward.
 
It was the right decision as Chappy was feeling unloved when walking along the corridors previously
 
Blue Expat said:
At the beginning of the season when we renewed his contract and we were top of the table, most of us were saying its the best signing in the summer. But unfortunately, the gas ran out of the team after Pep announcement.
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It ran out after six games
 
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Marvin said:
Mancini had his flaws: what has he done since leaving City? But he can build a team.

Pellegrini has failed despite good signings.

The season is not over yet. There is still time to respond but the manager is draining the potential of the team. I suspect he is liked by the players, but that doesn't mean much when he makes such obvious selection errors, and worst of all he does not learn from these errors. It is hard to accept that a very experienced manager like Pellegrini should in one of the biggest jobs of his career end up in this way. I suspect that he is just being stubborn. You have to be your own man, but you also have to have grasp on reality.
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We were doing better when he left than we are now plus he's not a lifeless corpse
 
Blue Expat said:
At the beginning of the season when we renewed his contract and we were top of the table, most of us were saying its the best signing in the summer. But unfortunately, the gas ran out of the team after Pep announcement.
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Most of us? I don't know one fan who didn't want him sacked at the end of last season.
 
andyhinch said:
It's strange that some equate the downturn to the Pep announcement we were playing shit for months before that
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Exactly this. I can't see any indication of a sudden change of form after the announcement. It wasn't such a shock for us fans to hear of Pep's imminent arrival, therefore it's hardly something that came totally out of the blue for the squad and managerial staff.
 
bobmcfc said:
We were doing better when he left than we are now plus he's not a lifeless corpse
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Not by much. Mancini built the team but he lost the players. Pellegrini has done a Ferguson and tried to extend the life of this team into his final season but he's misjudged it.
 
Unfortunately player power rules clubs now even ours.
In essence the players stopped playing for Bobby in 2013 and they have stopped playing for Manuel in 2016. MP lost the dressing room weeks ago and the Pep announcement and general player malaise has nailed the final coffin into a disastrous season. We have no chance of winning the Champions League and were fighting it out with 3 teams for 4th.
Had our powers that be managed the situation differently and held back on the announcement things could have been so different.
 
If the players have stopped playing for Manuel as suggested then they are a bunch of twats

What about playing for us in spite of the manager and even their own pride. Bollocks to giving up. They can row all they want behind closed doors but this is their job and they should do it.
 
I don't think the players have 'given up' or that Pellegrini's lost the dressing room - the team just doesn't look like they're practicing the right things, or not practicing them enough. I don't see the same understanding between players, the same anticipation as to what anyone's going to do. The result is a lot of passes that just don't quite make it, or are just the wrong side of a player, slowing everything down and putting us under pressure. The strikers don't quite know where to be and the mids don't quite know where to play the through balls to. They remind me of a team that's just come back from pre-season and are just a bit out of sync.
 
Petrovs left peg said:
Manuel Pellegrini gave me the most enjoyable season of my city supporting life with the swashbuckling football that saw us break goal scoring records galore. He was a stop gap to Pep, but to slag him off is plainly wrong
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He scraped the league in 2014 when the scousers bottled it.

This season has been the worst example of mismanagement of any City squad I have ever seen and that includes the mid 90s.
 
Some of our ageing squad are so wealthy now that they may not be that arsed if Pep decides to continue with them or not. Most will drift off into the sunset with a nice payoff and a lucrative short term deal elsewhere. I won't shed a tear for many of them.
 
It would have been interesting to see what would have happened in this amount of time if Mancini hadn't been sacked, I'm not saying he shouldn't have been sacked because the board obviously had their own very obvious reasons for doing so, but if we'd had Mancini till now and then seen Pep take charge that would have been an interesting prospect for me. On the otherhand hiring Pellegrini, it was a bit of an error, I mean they were hiring a manager who had no real track record in terms of winning trophies at his previous jobs, if you judge him by his first season he brought calm into the club and some of his signings weren't too bad to begin with either, Fernandinho, Negredo, Navas (Navas obviously only in first season), plus he did well to calm that poor run of form Joe Hart had by bringing in Pantimilon instead into the side.

But you could still argue Mancinis team basically won him the title even though his signings did do their jobs respectively in games, 2nd season we were really inconsistent, had runs of form where we were the old city of good and then the runs of the bad form, plus I kept thinking at times we should have done more to close in on Chelsea in the title race, but at the end of the day you aren't going to win the league every year so it's not particulary that that worried me, what worried me was the signings, Fernando, Mangala both flopped it's fair to say, Bony was a panic buy that hasn't worked and the others were mostly low key signings to fill out the squad that didn't have huge impacts, plus he frustrated me by loaning out Negredo at a bad time which made our strike force weak a bit like he did with Dzeko and Jovetic this year when he definitely could have played a part, disappointing for me more that the passion seemed to go out of that team in the inconsistent patches, doesn't help when none of your signings work out.

Then you have this season which started promisingly, I think Sterling we really overpaid for, we played into Liverpools hands to the point where it was like they forced us to come and get him from them, we should have just got someone european in and made a statement instead of overpaying for a player who wasn't really the finished article and only because he was english, then Otamendi who has been 50/50 has shown glimpses, the jury is still out on him, then you've got De Bruyne who is nothing short of inspirational and him and Pep will probably be the two most salvagable things from this season in terms of positives, then Delph who isn't bad, a bit like a cross between Barry and Milner, good enough for a squad player and I'd prefer him over Fernando any day but unfortunately he always seems to be injured.

So anyway positive start but it has fizzled out to the point where the club a/ can't beat anyone inside the top 8 and b/ can't win consequetive league games, at the end of the day it's obvious this season has been the worst out of the 3, and he definitely would have been sacked by now if Pep wasn't coming in, at the end of the day I don't care if Pellegrini is a gentleman and has handled this thing with tremendous respect, he has to take at least part of the blame for me he's naive and is tactically weak, plus he doesn't seem to motivate most of the players which is a huge problem especially this year as a lot of them don't seem to be up for games. Also regarding the PSG game it is not a given we are going to be destroyed, if anything our Champions League run is there to prove that is the one competition we can do well in this season (not including League Cup for obvious reasons) and although it wont be easy with Hart out I will always be behind the troops and I'd love to see them take the game to them and give them a good match.
 
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