When did it all start to go wrong?

[Phil1]

Lol,another excuse for a Mancini thread which very conveniently ignores facts and truths.

Once and for all,can all his fan boys please accept,although he did wonderful things during his tenure.....it also turned to rat shit and his presence was harming the club.....his sacking was inevitable and completely justified.

Now,it appears,although for differing reasons.......similar can be said for the current incumbent.

Using the term "fan boys" doesn't help,your argument. When you come to terms with the fact people will defend him when he's getting slagged (what's the opposite of fan boy?) then these threads may fade away.
Both sides are as guilty as the other.

Sorry,i was struggliung to think of another term that perfectly describes his sycophantic followers.

Can't help yourself can you, crack on.

 

[FantasyIreland]

Tell me Pablo,what good,or even relevance.....does the constant reference to Mancini do for meaningful,realistic,debate?

 

[cibaman]

We're a bit like a high class, thoroughbred racehorse. Capable of decimating fields, but highly strung and likely to breakdown.

When we're firing on all cylinders we can play magnificent football. But the difference between our best and worst performances is far too big. To some extent we had the best of both worlds last season, Pellegrini's flair combined with the remnants of Mancini's organisation. One of the criticisms that was made about Mancini was that the players were fed up with his relentless defensive drills, now apparently they're bored by Pellegrini's training sessions.

We need an injection of consistency and character this summer. Forget about signing players like Sterling. We need quality but also scrappers, leaders on and off the pitch. Players of the type of Costa and, dare I say it, Rooney.

 

[Phil1]

Tell me Pablo,what good,or even relevance.....does the constant reference to Mancini do for meaningful,realistic,debate?

None at all. Which is why I'll never bring him up or pander for the days of him being here.
I'll defend him when I think he needs defending though.

 

[BlueAnorak]

i have never gone to any game as comfortable or as confident with pellers at the helm as opposed to mancini. i know thats not the right thing to say on here but its the truth.

Thing is under Mancini if we took the lead we rarely drew, let alone lost - indeed the only exception I can think off is the Charity Shield against the rags when at 2-0, the players decided that they were not going to risk injury allowing the feckers to score 3. We had the best defence in the league for 4 seasons on the bounce (3 seasons if you're only counting clean sheets). The team were drilled within an inch of their lives and the mainly zonal defence (we always put our best headers of the ball against their best headers so not totally zonal) meant bad mistakes rarely happened. Indeed it normally took TWO consecutive mistakes to concede a goal.

Then along came Pellers.
Better attacking displays. good pressing and pace on the counter attack. This of course came with a higher defensive line but you knew each defensive mistake would lead to an opposition chance. Suddenly we looked vulnerable but we were great at the other end. Worse we changed to Man For Man defence so mistakes always looked gruesome. Roll on another season and the defending has got worse BUT what we had to compensate has vanished. Pressing is no longer to the same standard and the speed of counter attack has dropped to walking pace.

I love watching good defending but this season it has been shocking. Pellers doesn't help by not having a settled defence and Kompany's form has gone down the toilet. Mangala & Demichelis was working - why change it when it was working?

 

[FantasyIreland]

Tell me Pablo,what good,or even relevance.....does the constant reference to Mancini do for meaningful,realistic,debate?

None at all. Which is why I'll never bring him up or pander for the days of him being here.
I'll defend him when I think he needs defending though.

And you think you need to defend him now? from what?

 

[inbetween]

Getting beat by Arsenal, Boro in the cup and drawing with Chelsea having played so well was the starting point for me. I don't think we have ever really put a run together since then. We just didn't do enough to score in any of those games and that has been a big problem when we have defended so badly too.

 

[FantasyIreland]

When the manager couldn't figure out his best team,although in his defence,it must have been incredibly difficult knowing who he could trust and rely on - many have let him,and us,down with their carefree attitudes.

 

[Phil1]

Tell me Pablo,what good,or even relevance.....does the constant reference to Mancini do for meaningful,realistic,debate?

None at all. Which is why I'll never bring him up or pander for the days of him being here.
I'll defend him when I think he needs defending though.

And you think you need to defend him now? from what?

Read Prestwich Blue's post where he put him in the same bracket as Hitler.

 

[Dribble]

Oh great. More Mancini revisionist history. He acts like a dick to the players, owners and executives yet he's the reincarnation of Mercer, Shankly & Busby in one body. I'm sorry but it doesn't wash. It was even de niro, revisionist-in-chief, who told me the final straw came when even Silva & Zabaleta went to complain about him and threatened to leave. In some ways I'm sorry that he didn't get another season then some of you would have been under no illusions.

I think I'll start a thread in The Cellar about how Hitler wasn't such a bad guy after all and the Jews only had themselves to blame.

Anyway, for me it was the second half in Moscow. We were doing OK , not great but OK, up till then but it all fell apart after that.

And there in lies the problem. Can you just imagine Stam, Beckham, Keane & whoever else Ferguson fell out with bypassing him to 'go upstairs' and complain?

Whether Hughes, Mancini or Pellegrini, a manager needs the mandate to manage otherwise all hell will break out as it did with Mancini. Mancini's sacking was a power play by design from Soriano & Txiki, that much was obvious.

Knowing that they could go above the manager's head and receive a sympathetic ear is what made the players unmanageable and ultimately undermined the so called manager.

If I was the person above Mancini & one of his staff came to me to complain, I'd have politely told him to go back to his manager and resolve his issue thus reinforcing the managers mandate to manage effectively.

I mentioned the very same thing in a post yesterday as I was someone who had to sort out a workplace rabble by reinforcing to troublesome staff they had no higher autbority than their managers. 7-8 sackings later, peace reigned, harmony and productivity was restored and the weak minded underlings who lemming-like followed their troublesome barrack room laywer colleagues were soon back on track. Further down the line many of our former lemmings became management themselves and continued to instil our company's ethos to all new employees.

IIRC, Sir Alex Ferguson was doing something similar in a neighbouring town to Manchester, and as they say the rest is history. You undermine your management at your peril......