Deano58 wrote:Don't agree with de-stabilising the club by sacking Mancini, nor do I think he deserves sacking providing he finishes in the top 3.
I think you have to look at the players. The same players that were playing brilliantly under Mancini early in the season are now letting him down badly. I'm thinking of Silva whose position is seemingly sacrosanct. A magnificent player but he is not at teh races at the moment and should be taken out of the firing line. Similarly, Aguero, at least until his double last night. The heart has also been ripped out of our defence along with the captain and vice captain. All this is par for the course and we should be able to weather it but the timing could not really be worse.
The only good to come out of last night was that we scored a couple of goals and Ageuro was magnificent. Balotelli finally convinced me that we need more than a "character", we need a professional. So, for me, it's goodbye Mario. Hope you make something of yourself, but I can't see it.
Deano - this is not the sake of change for change, nobody is saying sack mancini now (on this forum anyway). He will be assessed on the season as a whole, something his contract will depend on. It just may be we decide to go a different direction with 12mth left on the table. I as much as anyone used that same yardstick with Hughes so it would be hypocritical to argue otherwise.
A top 3 finish and no silverware, in all likelihood is a step back from last season. At best, sideways. Which in the model we are running is failure. Failing to finish in the top 7 for Hughes was a failure, achieving less than last season would logically apply to Mancini.
We are talking hypotheticals. The optimists may be right and we win the title, and then this debate will come to a fore again if in 12mths we have underachieved under Mancini in Europe again. Realistically i see Manure winning by a comfortable margin and a resurgent Arsenal potentially coming close to mowing us down, especially if you are of the view they will beat us (you yourself said that) and assume we get what we have been getting away from home.
10 games is a quarter of a season but we are going the wrong way and mentality is a big part, but to be frank i havent really seen much change in that either over the last few months, and that is another mark against Mancini. I am tiring of his delusional view of how games have played out, and so i hope we avoid the embarrassment of say rumours of Mourinho replacing him circulating before the derby (as it did before Inter played Liverpool in the 2008 CL), and then embarrassingly resign if we lose the title at home.
We always need a plan B.............
I did say earlier this season that his contract extension was in part with a view of protecting our investment in the player. Don`t know that we will get 20 but we shouldn`t be taking any less than 15. Lavessi would be a great replacement but that would still leave us short of genuinne wide players....as we have been all season. 