Manchester City News 24/7Writer: BlueBilly 
Date:Sunday March 20 2011
Time: 8:54PM
UK time is: 18:05:41
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Doubting Roberto?
BlueBilly sent Vital Manchester City the following:
I want Mancini to be the one that guides us to glory, I really do. He's a disciplinarian, he has the image, he's young and he has that aura that all great managers need. But there are some things he does that infuriate me.
1) He continues to field negative teams in the important games; despite having approximately £75million of attacking prowess available to him (Jo hasn't been included in that total). This when every City fan knows that we are more than capable of taking the game to ageing and under performing 'big' sides.
2) He refuses to drop players, even when they consistently contribute below-par performances.
3)He always leaves it far too late for his substitutions to have any impact on the outcome of a game.
Our most reliable players are all from the pre-Mancini era, while Bobby's signings, Silva excluded, continue to disappoint. Maybe it's because they need time, Lescott has certainly needed time, having now formed a great partnership with 'should-be-captain-Kompany'.
Then again, maybe these new signings are just not up to it, Lescott's problem was never his ego, but this is the problem that Toure and Balotelli suffer from. Is it big egos that make up the 'winning mentality'? Unlikely. Yaya and 'not-so-Super-Mario' were both Champions in quality teams and maybe they overestimate how much they actually contributed to those sides.
We mustn't forget what Roberto has done for our club however. Under his management, we've undoubtedly progressed as a side, witnessing vast improvements in our defence. Zabaleta, Kompany, Lescott and in particular Richards have all benefited from Mancini's tuition.
The suave Italian also lit up the Premier League with the inspired signing of World Cup Winner David Silva, surely one of the most technically gifted players to grace our team in recent times. And during his tenure, City have also recently reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the first time in 30 years.
It's all set up to come down to the Spurs game again, but this time it won't just be our place in the Champions League on the line, but Mancini's job as well. Would 5th place suffice if we triumph in the FA Cup, in doing so ending our long wait for a trophy? Or is it top 4 or bust for Roberto?
What will the Sheik decide if we fail to meet this season's objectives? And what's more important for our club, long term stability, or instant success?
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Your Comments
nah he's a good manager but has the wrong type's of players...too many defensive midfielders if you ask me and central playmaker who is overated (yaya). i think get in a couple more attacking midfielders (not wingers) & get rid of barry (not good enough for where city want to be and you have dejong who does all of what he does and more). mancini already has the experience of winning the league and the only thing holding him back is the average players that huges bought in!
Ess...DaBison
One thing's for sure, Silva's been a great watch. Almost as good as Modric, some might say.;)
DubaiSpur
fourth or bust for Mancini, but I think you'll get the fourth anyway
The Horses Mouth
4th and FA Cup would cement his position with no doubt. 4th and no FA Cup will "probably" be enough but if Mourinho becomes available and expresses interest we could have our own Ranieri situation. 5th and FA Cup would probably make it 60/40 towards him being replaced. 5th and nothing would make it 80/20 towards him going, with the 20% only because we might not be able to get a top manager easily. Managers like O'Neill and Rijkaard are not better than Mancini despite the hype attached to them.
StuMCFC
Mancini is very good, in fact a very best manager. But sorry to say, he is only very best for Serie A. The team performance is largely the responsibility of the manager. If you think the team performance is not good enough because of the players, how many more players do you want to buy to satisfy you? This current squad is quite complete already over years of big spending, so there is no more excuse saying the players are not good enough leading to occasional under-par performance of the team. The inconsistency of the team performance of Man City is down to one thing - Mancini's managing ability. And his managing ability is getting VERY questionable now. For all the managers in EPL, he is the only manager that play "negative football". This negativity is getting very annoying already and fans and perhaps even the players, the club owner are running out of patience already. Playing negative football could send a bad message to rival teams implying that - you are scared of something, you are scared of losing the game and your job, you are lacking ability to manage the team well, you are lacking the ability to turn the team into an aggressive attacking team, there are obvious weaknesses in the team. Implying all these - negativity imply weakness. Rival teams will begin to bully you because of this negativity. It is getting ridiculous already as even a minnow team like Reading (FA Cup) played like as if they are not scared of beating you. Sorry to say, it is quite stupid playing negative football.
windleaf
No team will be scared of a team that plays negative football all the time. Man City playing negative or cautious football is like a team openly inviting other teams even a small team like Reading to beat them. It is like an open invitation to disaster. Unbelievable. With all the quality of the players at Mancini's disposal now, those players are already good enough to beat any top team in the world. The only thing lacking is solid, aggressive team performance. With top quality players in the team, they should have played aggressively and fearlessly, with solid defense of course, not like how they are playing now - cautious, gutless, negative, safety first, chicken-out. All this BS. Perhaps Mancini has never learnt one thing - attack is the best defense. All top teams in the world always play aggressively. The best team like Barca is extremely aggressive. But Man City play negative football instead. They played scared or something against top quality team. But they tried to "bully" lesser teams instead. The problem is, lesser team won't fear a negative team like this. This has become a laughing stock now for other teams and thanks to one man - Mancini. No one knows what he is thinking. Players like Tevez is highly aggressive and fearless, but the style of the team is like a complete mismatch to him. I begin to understand why Tevez wanted to ask for transfer. Man City team is getting boring and ineffective already. If Mancini doesn't "step up himself", sorry to say, he has to go, as he could be the one crucial factor who cause the club to miss Champions League spot again this season.
windleaf
The good thing about Mancini is that he trusts the players. He trusts Tevez, he trusts Ballotelli. He trusts the players to follow his way of playing and getting the resuits that he asks for. But the bad thing about Mancini is that, he seems to know better to criticize players or give excuses whenever there are bad results. Team like Man City need a manager who is charismatic and knows how to motivate the players no matter what, not criticize them instead. A highly-motivated, solid, aggressive top quality team could break any top team in the world. But sorry to say, Mancini has failed in this area.
windleaf
not enough players get into the box when we have the chance and we give the ball away far too easily. I agree too many def midfielders and not enough support for Silva and the strikers.
Buzz Lightyear
You are going to have to open us up and get us playing more freely for the run in Roberto if we are to secure the wins we need.
Johnny Baguette
What annoys me is that Mancini thinks we played "well" for 80 minutes against Chelsea. "Well" because we didn't concede any goals...and this is the problem. It seems that Mancini most important criteria for "playing well" is not conceding any goals whereas actually making goals only gets secondary attention. Sorry, but for me, parking the bus for 80 minutes is not "playing well", any team in the premiership can do that and be even more successful than we were on Sunday. This belief that we can only go to the big teams and grind out a 0-0 draw has an adverse effect on the team's belief in their ability and you can see from our recent performances that we are lacking belief when going forward even against lesser team at home. This mentality has to change! We have to start playing with more urgency, power and positivity if we are to get anything from our season. With this latest performance we only gave that tw*t Paul Merson more arguments in his "boring City" crusade.
blue ponderer
His ideology is clear, earn draws or if possible a smash-and-grab wins over top sides and dispose of the rest. It isn't a bad idea in theory as the league isn't won by the top 4/5 vs. top 4/5 matches but as yesterday showed it can easily go wrong. Strangely enough we weren't negative at all against United and many feel we deserved something out of that match.
StuMCFC
Stu, the problem is that we are not winning all those other matches against the "lesser" teams, so this theory of only going for draws(and only maybe more if lucky) against strong opposition doesn't work...besides it is a theory adopted by the likes of Stoke...should we not be a bit more ambitious with the obvious quality we have in our squad? Indeed we did try more against United and I don't think any of our fans were unhappy with that performance despite the result...
blue ponderer
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