Marvin said:
I was predicting top 4, but City are beginning to resemble a circus with the number of changes. We needed to buy quickly to beat the UEFA turnover regulations, but it puts us under a lot of pressure immediately, and we don't look anywhere near ready. A World Cup Summer and major signings = little preparation time.
City will be under intense scrutiny, and the players And fans will have to show a lot of bottle if they get off to a bad start. Teams like Utd, Arsenal etc have been together for years and they know everything about each other, and there's trust between the players so they can deal with defeat, and bounce back.
DeNiro, I wouldn't read too much into how we are playing at the moment. I suspect we are likely trying out several systems of play this summer as I fully expect that Mancini will use probably 3 or more during the season for different competitions and opponents.
I refer to the quote below from the following link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/m/man_city/8423666.stm
The former Italy international tends to line his teams up in a 4-3-1-2 formation but has experimented with pretty much every strategy apart from a three-pronged central defence.
A combative midfield trio forms the heart of his team, but whereas he could call upon Javier Zanetti, Esteban Cambiasso and Vieira at Inter, City's only real midfield destroyer is Nigel de Jong.
So Mancini is expected to recruit in that area - Barcelona's Yaya Toure is rumoured to be a target - and also reinforce a leaky defence.
But he will be delighted to learn that City are already well-blessed in the wing positions, which are pivotal to his tactical approach.
He likes to field at least one - often two - tall and robust strikers, meaning a department that consists of Emmanuel Adebayor and the injury-prone Roque Santa Cruz might well be bolstered
What is written above seems to be very consistent with what we have done in signing Yaya Toure and pursuing Balotelli/Dzeko. I'm not so sure he will pursue a world class CB as he tends to rely primarily on a 7 man zonal defense system which can be difficult to play but relies more on teamwork than individual brilliance.
That being said, I think the only thing that could be a potential issue is man management with Mancini. With the turnover in the squad, there is likely to be some sense of mistrust among the players which needs to be offset by good leadership which Mancini has shown a bad history of.
The bloke writing a blog at:
http://myargentinianfootball.blogspot.com/2008/05/future-of-inter-milan-mancini-to.html
had to this to say about why he was happy Mancini was leaving Inter:
1) He does not have the respect of the majority in the dressing room anymore. The majority of the the players have voted for him to leave. He has had spats with Figo, Crespo, Vieira, Ibrahimovic, and even the team doctors!
This is supported by additional articles:
http://www.goal.com/en/news/10/italy/2009/05/17/1269501/inters-luis-figo-retires-from-football
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/web/COM1117368/index.htm
We started to see signs of this towards the end of last season where rumors of bust-ups with the manager became quite frequent (Ireland, Tevez, Bellamy spring to mind right away), but so far this pre-season we haven't had much at all.
As long as Mancini can keep control of the dressing room, I don't see any reason why this team wouldn't be challenging for the premier league title.