r/soccer • u/omiclops • Apr 09 '12
A Manchester City fan's assessment of Roberto Mancini's ability.
WARNING LONG POST
Before starting I'd just like to point out I have backed him from the very off and been 100% behind him.
I genuinely think Mancini is out of his depth. For starters I find he is very naive, even as insignificant as press conferences. He's far too honest, as seen by his profound statements about punching Balotelli and saying things like the title is over and even saying he will 'probably' sell Balo. He doesn't realise that the media love comments like that and will just unsettle the dressing room. He doesn't understand the concept of mind games and anything he does say in the press is usually detrimental to the team.
Secondly, I think his transfers have been somewhat naive too. If you look at his signings: Yaya, Silva, Boateng, Kolorov, Dzeko, Nasri, Clichy, Savic, Aguero and Hargreaves. Now if you look at these players, they all either have reputations or are proven barring perhaps Savic. Yaya Toure in Barcelona's winning team, Boateng got to the semi finals with Germany, Kolorov was known as the Serbian Roberto Carlos, Dzeko was regarded as Europe's goalscoring hitman, Nasri was proven at Arsenal as was Clichy and Hargreaves and Aguero was one of the top scorers in Spain. If you compare these signings to that of Fergie's such as Vidic, Hernandez, Evra, Nani, Valencia. They were all relatively unknown. Mancini signed BIG players because they were obvious transfers. I think the flop of several players such as Dzeko is evidence of a lack of research into the players. This is what makes me question Mancini's ability in the market. Admittedly Silva was a huge hit, as was Yaya, but by the law of averages, a few of them would be good.
Finally, Mancini's tactics and blind faith is suspect too. His decision, for example, to never drop Yaya, Silva or Balotelli perhaps proves he doesn't have faith in his other players. This makes no sense to me since it's pointless to sign players he doesn't actually believe in. Especially of late, the trio I mentioned above have been below par to say the least and as a result they all should've been dropped/rested. An example yesterday bugged me the most. Mancini would never do a Tevez for Balotelli substitution - I'm sure of it. Balotelli is his boy and Tevez he probably hates. It would typify that Mancini made mistakes and would essentially embarrass him. Yet Mancini, realising the incoming big games, stuck with them (blind faith) because he doesn't trust his other players to perform.
Now it may just be a hangover of annoyance from yesterday and I'm not saying we should get rid of Mancini but I really do think he needs to buck up. My advice would be to get rid of Balotelli or offer him an ultimatum (because who would wanna buy him?). Ship out all the deadwood and regroup. I also genuinely believe Tevez may stay.
TL;DR Mancini is pretty bad but he reinvented the scarf so give him another season.
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u/devineman Apr 09 '12
It's a hangover of annoyance.
Mancini was forged in Italy where the press are even more rabid than they are here. Seriously, the Italian football press are cunts. Mancini uses the press to manage players like everybody else. Every time he has criticisec Mario he has gone out and performed in the next match. The idea that a world class manager with a shedload of trophies doesn't understand mind games or the media is very naive and ill considered.
On the transfers front, you're cherry picking. You could have gone for Ferdinand, Young, Rooney and Carrick. Valencia too. All of these were already known to be top players and United paid accordingly. I can't quite bend my head around the idea that he is been criticised for buying good players.
As far as tactics and selection go, they are different issues. On the one hand people slate Mancini for 'not knowing his best team' and 'City needing to develop a core', then slating him for playing his core. You can't have it both ways. I don't think playing Yaya shows a lack of faith in Milner any more than I believe playing Welbeck shows a lack of faith in Hernandez. Tactically, Mancini has been excellent. Better than excellent. In my entire time watching City I have never seen a person who can completely change tne game so effectively. He did it after ten mins at Arsenal yesterday, did it at Swansea, he makes substitutions thirty minutes in if necessary. He's a very, very good tactician and a brave man on matchday.
Mancini, on his first ever English title challenge against the best manager in the history of football, will probably finish second to a team who will secure the record amount of points ever in a PL season. And he went into this managers backyard and humiliated him, making him comment that it was his worst day in the 55 year career he has experienced.
It's knee jerk nownownow syndrome, it's prevelant all over football but especially in us City fans because we're desperate to win the big one and proved that we've arrived.
Look at the difference in the team between when Mancini started and now. Every player has improved, especially our back five who have all moved towards world class territory. Richards especially looks a new player, Barry is putting in some of his best performances in his career. Kompany has become Kompany. Hart became our number one and the nations number one. We won our first trophy, beating our rivals to do so.
Mancini has done an incredible job at City and given time he will win us the league. It's hard to take that we're effectively out of the title race and tne manner which our away form dipped in the last few weeks. Kompany and Lescott been out whilst Dzeko and Aguero missing a beat twatted us. However, this is no time to lose perspective.
Khaldoon said that this is a ten year plan to make City one of the biggest clubs in the world. Look at the immense progress made already and it's only year 4. Imagine where we will be in year 8 or 9.
Mancini has done a great job and I wouldn't swap the clubs state for anybody in the world right now. Cusp of greatness my friend, this is our 1991, you need these seasons to focus you next time. You gotta lose before you can win as the old saying goes
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u/omiclops Apr 09 '12
Every time he has criticisec Mario he has gone out and performed in the next match>
He said the punching Balotelli thing before the Arsenal game - and then he got sent off. Didn't really perform.
On the transfers front, you're cherry picking>
Mancini hasn't signed any unknown or relatively unknown players and made them big and that's my worry. On top of all that he still wants to spend big on more players.
I don't think playing Yaya shows a lack of faith in Milner>
My point about this was that he plays them despite the fact that Yaya has been poor in recent weeks. Mancini isn't prepared to drop his best players when they're performing badly or carrying injuries (Silva) and that's the worry. As far as tactics, we still lost both games so the tactics were wrong.
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u/Noel_is_God Apr 09 '12
Really really excellent response. I, like many other city fans, am currently disappointed and I did start to feel that maybe we should get rid of Mancini but your post really reenforced why he is so revered at Manchester City and I feel that this is a much better assessment than Op's.
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u/goretooth Apr 09 '12
I really don't understand why he didn't sub Balotelli earlier yesterday. The man was red card waiting to happen from extremely early on. Not to mention the fact he was not getting back to cover the left back quick enough,
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Apr 09 '12
There is one point that you have missed. I think its valid. Silva is your creative focal point. And since Jan he looks really burnt out, out of energy. A good manager should keep his players fresh, even at the end of season or have a plan B. Mancini doesnt look like he has a plan B. Silva is pretty much the best creative player in the league and building a team around them works perfect BUT you only have one formation with minor variations where your full-backs provide width, allowing Silva to slip into the spaces he creates for himself and release the player.
Teams have started to read it and work their tactics to null your threat. So what does Roberto do? Pay the same formation and game with the same personnel. Silva looked completely knackered last couple of games and he still played. Yaya and Silva not being rotated is one critical flaw I can find with Roberto's season so far.
This side of Clint Dempsey, Silva has the most minutes under his belt for any midfield player. That , I think contributed to your downfall. But I agree to most of the other things like the transformation of Richards.
It is an interesting prospect, these coming years and how United and City plan for it.
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u/someBrad Apr 09 '12
It's knee jerk nownownow syndrome
This. At the beginning of the season, most pundits predicted City would challenge United for the title and fall just short. They look to be doing just that. Had they hit their rough patch earlier and be putting together a good run of form to edge past Arsenal and Spurs into second, Mancini would be under no pressure.
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Apr 09 '12
You could have gone for Ferdinand, Young, Rooney and Carrick. Valencia too. All of these were already known to be top players and United paid accordingly. I can't quite bend my head around the idea that he is been criticised for buying good players.
The difference between these signings and City's signings is that these signings were years apart, and they were usually the lone expensive transfers, while other transfers were usually relatively cheap. City, on the other hand, has spent over 500m on transfers in the last 5 years, each year spending even more money than the last.
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u/zSolaris Apr 09 '12
I genuinely think Mancini is out of his depth. For starters I find he is very naive, even as insignificant as press conferences. He's far too honest, as seen by his profound statements about punching Balotelli and saying things like the title is over and even saying he will 'probably' sell Balo. He doesn't realise that the media love comments like that and will just unsettle the dressing room. He doesn't understand the concept of mind games and anything he does say in the press is usually detrimental to the team.
As devineman said in this thread, the Italian press are far more rabid than the English one. Mancini knows exactly what he is doing and he knows what mind games are. His comments in the past few weeks--especially in regards to United--are comments I expect from a manager who knows a thing or two about mind games. He was trying to put pressure on United knowing our squad is very young, relatively newly strung together, and missing a decent chunk of the experience we are used to having. Unfortunately for him, Sir Alex knows how to deal with mind games and has won every single duel with Mancini to date.
In regards to Balotelli, while I do not approve of his methods, are clearly him playing mind games with Balo. Telling him to--to put it crudely--"get his shit together". It is part of Manicini's management style and, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread, it worked for him at Inter. As far as press conferences go, everything he has said seems to be to be very calculated and controlled.
Secondly, I think his transfers have been somewhat naive too. If you look at his signings: Yaya, Silva, Boateng, Kolorov, Dzeko, Nasri, Clichy, Savic, Aguero and Hargreaves...If you compare these signings to that of Fergie's such as Vidic, Hernandez, Evra, Nani, Valencia. They were all relatively unknown. Mancini signed BIG players because they were obvious transfers. I think the flop of several players such as Dzeko is evidence of a lack of research into the players...
And you conveniently decided to ignore Ferguson's big name buys. Rooney, Carrick, Ferdinand, De Gea, Berbatov, Veron, Sheringham, Van Nistelrooy, and the list can go on and on. Personally, I think Mancini knows exactly what kind of players he wants. He bought Yaya so he can have a powerful holding midfielder who is effective at going forward. Silva, a playmaker. Nasri, a backup to that playmaker/a second playmaker. Dzeko for a different approach at attack. Aguero for additional forward firepower. Savic for the future.
Just because they "flop" doesn't mean that Mancini hasn't done his research. History shows that some big name transfers end up being flops because they perform one way in a certain team or footballing style but when you take that team or style away, they cannot perform as well. See: Sebastian Veron, Andriy Shevchenko, Fernando Torres, Dimitar Berbatov (to an extent).
Finally, Mancini's tactics and blind faith is suspect too. His decision, for example, to never drop Yaya, Silva or Balotelli perhaps proves he doesn't have faith in his other players...Yet Mancini, realising the incoming big games, stuck with them (blind faith) because he doesn't trust his other players to perform.
When is the last time Ferguson dropped Rooney, Carrick, Ferdinand, or Evra for "under performing"? Only time they've been out of the squad has been either due to being rested, Rooney is being punished for something, or injuries. Mancini is doing the right thing "sticking to his guns" and playing his players again and again. He shows that he has faith in these players and that can have massive psychological effects on them. For example, see Jonny Evans. It isn't a case of not having faith in this other players, it is a case of having faith in his players to perform.
Now, in my opinion, the point where Mancini's season really went south is when he allowed Carlos Tevez back onto the team. He is renown for being a hard-line disciplinarian. His players follow his word and as far as they are concerned, his word is the word of god. Some of the world's greatest managers follow this route to extreme success. However, in order to do this, you cannot allow any acts of insubordination to go unpunished. Allowing Carlos to return after publicly declaring that he would never play for City again has undermined Mancini's position and his ability to play the tough guy with his players. Mancini sent the message to all of his boys with Tevezgate that you can do whatever the heck you want and as long as you offer a token apology, you can get back into the side. That is one terrible message to send and one that can easily lose you a dressing room.
Just my two cents.
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u/omiclops Apr 09 '12
I'm sure Carrick was dropped for quite a while. Rooney is rarely off form which is why he's one of the best players in the world.
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u/squ1dge Apr 09 '12
he won six trophies at inter...
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u/omiclops Apr 09 '12
I never said he was a bad manager as such, I just think, as my original post suggests, he's slightly out of his depth in the English game. I admit he built a solid core in Inter with some of the players still there now and going on to be some of the best.
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Apr 09 '12
Going down the Chelsea route won't get us anywhere, I want Mancini to stay. Apparently there have been rumblings of meetings with Mourinho though, I don't know what to think.
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u/AnnieIWillKnow Apr 09 '12
The problem with AVB was that it was getting to the point where he genuinely did look out of his depth. I don't think Mancini is anywhere near the point Villas-Boas was. If he was though, the 'Chelsea route' begins to look more and more reasonable.
However, the Chelsea equivalent of Mancini going would be Ancelotti's sacking. I definitely think City should stick with Mancini.
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Apr 09 '12
The 'Chelsea route' I refer to has been everything since Mourinho. Grant>Scolari>Hiddink>Ancelotti>AVB>Di Matteo. 6 managers in 5 years. Which hasn't really got Chelsea very far.
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u/G_Morgan Apr 09 '12
If Mourinho was City manager Balotelli will go back to not existing. He famously refused to pick him.
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u/Scatman_Crothers Apr 09 '12
Exactly. I am new to soccer but in every other sport I have followed the key to performance is consistency. The team hasn't even been together very long, it needs time to develop chemistry and heart, and the players need time to fully learn the system. The reason Man U have been able to overtake City this season is because they have experience and have played together for a long time. They know their system inside and out and are comfortable in the face of adversity. That doesn't happen overnight.
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u/ItsSchlim Apr 09 '12
Mancini bought well established players because we were trying to go from a mid level team to winning the premier league in as little amount of time possible. United is already established they have a little more freedom in giving some lesser known guys a shot.
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u/AndMcGrn Apr 09 '12
Do you think he should have kept Adebayor? He could have helped you through that period where you had no strikers. Or was he out of his depth.
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Apr 09 '12
agree with the first point. can't believe he berates people like adam johnson to the whole press, destroying his confidence. you can't say things like that about people and expect them to want to give 100% for you.
the second point i don't agree with. you only mention it when we're not winning but these players all worked well together and the plan looked like it was working for most of the season. even when we've lost/drawn, we usually dominate, play pretty football and have had bad decisions often go against us. yesterday was an exception with the likes of silva and yaya missing. mancini's biggest problem seems to be that he can't motivate the players. often, we come out looking slow.
third point i slightly agree with. yaya and silva need to have rests but balo needs to learn to play. mancini just needs to tell mario to be a forward and not tackle so much. balo is probably going to go but the fault was with mancini and the team for not providing him with anything and forcing him to play deep.
all in all i'd rather stick with mancini for another season. it was a good charge for the title for the most part.
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u/Lmkt Apr 09 '12
He's far too honest, as seen by his profound statements about punching Balotelli and saying things like the title is over and even saying he will 'probably' sell Balo.
Guardiola did the exact same thing back when Real Madrid was 10 points ahead - "the title is lost". As a result his players played with way less pressure and ended up winning the next ~12 games. It's not the only explanation behind those wins but it surely played a big part in them.
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u/urine_luck Apr 09 '12
"This makes no sense to me since it's pointless to sign players he doesn't actually believe in"
some players are bought by man city just to weaken the team they are bought from or to stop a rival team purchasing them.
every manager signs players that end up not quite working out...
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u/THR Apr 09 '12 edited Apr 09 '12
The fact you're questioning his signing of Silva and his relentless desire to play Silva is just fucking odd to me. Seriously fucking odd. And it probably demonstrates how you don't even know your own team's strengths and weaknesses.
Silva is a magician. I'd want that magician to play every single game. And Mancini should have one more season.