One of the more annoying cliches in sports is the idea that games are somehow more vital than each other. You hear this all the time, how a game is a "6 pointer" or some such nonsense. The reality is that if you win any of the 38 league games in the Premier League you receive 3 points. It's as true on the opening game of the season as it is against Wigan tonight.
So of course tonight is a vital game against Wigan in the race for the fourth Champions League spot. Yeah, whatever.
City need to gain 6 more points than Spurs over the club's next eight games, including tonight, while Spurs play one less. That's it. City have five home games and only three away from Eastlands against Burnley, Arsenal and on the last day of the season West Ham.
City's final game at home this year is against those same North London rivals, Spurs. Anyone want to bet it will be a "6 pointer?"
Meanwhile I'm going to be very curious as to the fate of Roberto Mancini. Having had the board deem that Mark Hughes wasn't on the appropriate pace to hit 70 points for the season the Italian currently has City chugging along at a 67 point clip.
I'm not going to rehash the whole Hughes situation. I thought he was harshly treated given the circumstances but didn't have the ability to take City to the next level. I believe Mancini does given time. Whether the former Inter boss is given that time is I think debatable and ironically the club has only to look outside the city limits and into Trafford to see the benefits of giving a manager enough time. Old Purple Nose would never have survived in today's climate and you have to wonder which younger Managers have missed out similarly.
What Ferguson had going for him was early success at Aberdeen. Someone like a Gianfranco Zola at West Ham seems out of his depth precisely because he is having not, it would appear from this vantage point, acquired the necessary skills at a previous level.
Mark Hughes is a decent manager, his record at Blackburn showed that and I'll be curious to see where the Welshman ends up. The new Hammers' owners showed at Birmingham that they could oversee a yo-yo club while putting in investment and building for the long term future. I'm not sure Hughes is the guy for that club, but would be interesting to see. If Zola lasts until the end of the season I'm pretty sure he is gone whether the East Londoners stay up or not.
Post World Cup it is going to be a very interesting off season for Managers. City need players still and while not constrained financially it still makes sense to do business prior to the World Cup. If so a commitment to Mancini is needed sooner rather than later.
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Posted by SalfordExile on 03/29/2010
Wallace,
As ever, a very good article. Totally agree on the Hughes point but what can we do? There was a sudden shift of opinion and in my view it was a very poor decision as Hughes was given a task/target and he was on course to achieve it.
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Posted by Martin Nazimek on 03/29/2010
As soon as Hughes took over we knew that he would not be the manager to take us into the world stage. The owners wanted a high profile manager. Is mancini that manager? I dont know, but I do hope so. The only other manager I would take over mancini is jose, but that will probably not happen.He wants the united job and to be honest, Im not to happy about it. More scared than anything. Though to be the best you must beat the best. So i guess bring it on.
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Posted by Enricko on 03/30/2010
It's been ages since you posted your last article Wallace! And it's great to hear from you again.
This may not be related much to the topic, but I am curious to hear what advice you would give to Zola. What do you think he should have done before coaching West Ham? What are the necessary previous level skills that he doesn't have that Sir Alex has?
And what do you think of Stuart Pearce? He went to footballing academy before coaching any clubs, even when he already had great footballing CV.
Wallace Reply I think managers should serve an apprenticeship, as it were, in lower leagues before becoming premier league managers. Ferguson started out at East Stirling and St. Mirren before he ever got to Aberdeen for example, Brian Clough was at Hartlepool before he went to Derby, George Graham at Millwall before Arsenal etc. Stuart Pearce is an example of a manager who I think would have benefited greatly from managing in the lower leagues first. And remember that even Mourinho, although he started briefly at Benfica, really got his managerial start at the unfancied Leiria.
if you can manage and be successful without the luxury of quick fixes in the transfer market then you have a shot at being successful at a higher level. Sometimes you don't need that apprenticeship, Capello comes to mind, but...
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Posted by Daniel on 03/30/2010
A sensible enough article. But when will you dispense with the 'Welshman' routine? When will you get with the globalization, man? If you're gonna talk about clichés of the English media, then you've got to talk about their penchant for identifying a player by his nationality. At least, so it seems to this American. CTID. Another cliché? Yep.
Wallace Reply lol. There are only so many ways you can describe a player or manager so that's a convention used in a lot of articles, "the former this" or identifying the nationality. And anyway, my old Gran would be proud that I called out the Welshman... proud of her heritage she was.
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Wallace Poulter is an award winning video game producer, designer, industry consultant and writer. He has been a football fanatic since the day he moved in next door to Brian Clough. "Cloughie" being the acknowledged genius that he was promptly moved out and went to manage Derby. A serviceable senior school left-back in his youth, Poulter played one season of Sunday league football as a striker proving conclusively that he was a serviceable senior school left-back! Today Poulter remains involved with football as a licensed referee and most recently as a consultant on a Football MMO.
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