Manchester City Coach Roberto Mancini Under Pressure
The start of the Premier League season is now less than a week away and if there is one man who is under intense pressure that is Roberto Mancini of Manchester City. Mancini is facing odds of 5-1 to be the first manager to be sacked. Not very surprising given the clubs ambition and the money they have spent in recent seasons to end their 34-year old trophy drought.
City finished a dismal 5th in the Premier league last season with 67 points. Bowed out of the FA cup in the fifth round at the hands of Manchester united and also lost out on a final appearance in the Carling Cup losing again to United in the semi finals.
But since then they have spent in excess of 75 million pounds bringing in David Silva for 24 million from Valencia, Jerome Boateng from Hamburg for 11 million, Alexander Kolarov from Lazio for 16 million, Yaya Toure for 28 million from Barcelona, Alex Hanshall from Swindon for 250K and Albert Runsak from MFK Kovice for an undisclosed amount of money.
Bookmakers’ odds on managers losing their jobs never reflect the true picture but it is telling that City’s manager is only the second favourite to Chris Houghton to lose his job.
Mancini could certainly have done with an easier run of fixtures to start the season. City kick off the Premier League with a mouth watering lunch time clash, against a team that piped them to fourth place in the Premier league last season, Tottenham Hotspurs. Then they have a tricky tie at home against Liverpool as the Merseysiders are the first team to visit the City of Manchester Stadium this season and one can only imagine what a couple of opening week defeats do to the inexperienced yet ambitious owners of City.
Mancini’s first season in charge of the club has seen plenty of money being splashed and presumably Mario Balotelli and a few more still to come. But it would not surprise all and sundry if the consensus is that the best piece of business that City did in the last two seasons was to buy a youngster named Adam Johnson from Middlesbrough. For the price that was 1/4th of what they paid for Yaya Toure and less than 1/3rd of what they paid to Valencia for David Silva.
After their Carling Cup debacle last season perhaps Gary Cook should have learned the important lesson of not making hostages to fortune but one cannot deny that there is no escaping from the burden of expectations at a club with such high ambitions. Mark Hughes has time and again criticized his dismissal and has said that he would have delivered the fourth spot for City but it’s time for Marky to move on as City already have Mancini. The new coach is already being expected to do something that they have not done in over 30 years, to challenge for the title.
If the results are not positive from the outset then despite Cook’s demands for positive media coverage he and his team will be in the headlines for all the wrong reasons and that is something neither Hughes or City can afford.
Following their ties against Spurs and Liverpool, City travel to the stadium of Light in Sunderland and a par score from the first three games would perhaps be 5 points – six would involve a defeat and Mancini and City could certainly do without one so early in the competition.
After the break for international friendlies in early October, City travel to the DW stadium in Wigan, a game where the fans would demand nothing less than a thumping win. Even if everything goes to plan up till then City will then welcome the reigning Champions Chelsea to the City of Manchester Stadium for a match that will prove to be an acid test for City’s title credentials.
Should City secure 14 or more points before the home game to Newcastle on October 13th, Mancini will still be in the hot seat at City and perhaps should also feel pretty content. (The game will be their fourth televised game of the season out of 7 – they simply cannot avoid the spotlight)
The club has spent enough money to assemble a title winning squad but life would simply have been sweeter had the Abu Dhabi United Group bought a Champions League team similar to Chelsea in 2003, when Roman Abrahamovic bought the club. The demands from a team and Sven Goran Eriksson were too much when Thaksin Shinawatra bought only half a team in what can only be called one crazy weekend.
History is not on his side but if Mancini is not to follow the fate suffered by his predecessors then his patience will need to be in as plentiful supply as they money.
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