Thursday 6 May 2010

Mancini to stay

Confirmation from Khaldoon al Mubarak in an interview he gave today:

"Roberto's going to do a wonderful job for us for many years," Mubarak told Manchester City's official website.

"Roberto is our manager. He's done an excellent job coming in mid-season, organising the team. I'm very happy, and [owner] Sheikh Mansour's delighted with the way he's organised the team."

Mubarak added: "We believe he is definitely the right manager for this club for many years. What he needs this summer is time to prepare and really organise ourselves.

It's a relief to hear this. This has been the fourth consecutive season when, going into the final corner, there have been serious doubts over the manager's position. Stuart Pearce and Sven-Goran Eriksson were sacked at the end of the 2006/07 and 2007/08 seasons respectively, while Hughes and Mancini have survived.

Interestingly enough, the circumstances are almost identical to the confirmation Hughes' position last year. It came after a narrow loss to Spurs, again the penultimate game of the season as City missed out on the European competition we were aiming to qualify for. There was some uncertainty over the future but the day after the game Khaldoon came out and said Hughes was staying. And you know the rest.

Now, I'm not saying that Khaldoon is definitely going to lose faith in Mancini after a string of draws in the autumn, or that Mancio is definitely going to get sacked after a pathetic surrender at White Hart Lane and a mad, pressure-free 4-3 defeat of Sunderland, but, well, it's possible.

2 comments:

StanMCFC said...

Yes good news, what struck me about the interview was how personable the chairman seemed. Belied the lazy media cliche of impatient, ruthless owner that's gained currency since sacking of Mark Hughes.

Personally believe Mancini will get at least a season to prove himself now. Even if the team underperform.

And think that's only right. Even Hughes, who the media (and many fans) think was treated so unjustly, got a season and a half.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Mancini will get his extra 12 months, and 200 million to spend, to boot. Somehow, I don't think he'll be giving three and four year contracts to RSC and Bellamy, or paying 15 million for Toure and 25 million for Lescott.

And people wonder why Hughes was sacked!