Man City show their class as usual.
To have Hughes in charge yesterday while Mancini was actually in the crowd waiting for the announcement, well, yeah, classy.
I was in the crowd and heard no announcement :rolleyes:
Lemme see now…a manure fan are you?
I never said there was an announcement to the crowd. I was watching SSN and knew Mancini was at the ground well before kick-off. The announcement of a press conference was made directly after that game, and Hughes sacking/Mancinis appointment were made official shortly afterwards.
The BBC has Hughes quoted today saying he had no idea he was about to be sacked. So, what, you think it was coincidence Mancini was there, that he was just appointed on a whim after meeting the city board as they bought a pie at full time? As I say, classy.
Who I support is irrelevant, except to give you a reason to state for the 9,567,001 time on this board that ‘manure’ are shite, glory hunters blah blah etc etc. Its like a really boring, broken record.
Oh come come, I must have said manure are shite far more than you give me credit for.
Here’s another one, manure are shite 
Man U really are poor this year. Injuries aside, they have very little attacking thrust.
Not too surprised about Man City though Mancini is an interesting choice. They’ll spend and spend in January.
Liverpool could be in real trouble. Their season now depends on them getting into the top four which I can see them doing. They haven’t gone to complete crap overnight.
It really is very boring** chowder** and saying it again but putting a smiley face after it doesn’t even make it funny.
Regarding the Hughes sacking, I’ve heard more than once that he sat down with the owners and agreed with them what would be a satisfactory position for the club to be in at this stage of the season. Assuming the club could have won 2 out of the next 4 games that would have been achieved.
I don’t expect agreements in football to be kept these days though, either from players, managers or clubs. The only surprising thing about this episode is that Hughes didn’t get the backing of the board mentioned in the press during the week, which if I was a manager would get me updating my C.V. immediately.
I’m pretty neutral about Hughes as a manager but in this case I think he’s been shit on.
Father Ted got a raw deal at the weekend. No real surprise, you can rely on City to reliably fuck the simplest of things up through general haplessness. Now that Gary Cook is installed as chairman, bumbling incompetence is bolstered by a crass cack-handedness in making any sort of important decision.
Overall though, Hughes can have few complaints. He was not appointed by the owners, and spent 200 million. He didn’t have the pick of the transfer market, but still could have done better - City’s defence is atrocious for a premiership club looking to compete.
Mancini will do better, but he’s got a big job ahead of him to match the achievements of recent City managers - Brian Horton, Peter Reid, Joe Royle - who can forget the Paul Dickov game, securing promotion from the third division, putting Gillingham to the sword? Or Kevin Keegan, winning the second division with a record points total? Alan Ball - telling Steve Lomas to keep the ball by the corner flag, ensuring relegation in 96? Legends - the man from Milan has his work cut out
Hughes has conducted himself admirably and with decorum.
He’s not slagged anyone off (yet) and somehow I don’t think he will, he doesn’t seem that kind of bloke.
FWIW I’m not at all happy with the way things have been handled and feel that MH has been handed the shitty end of the stick.
That said I don’t think he’s been hard enough when dealing with the prima donna, Robinho, this guy should have been hauled over the coals more than once for the way he’s behaved.
Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he was sold off in January and good riddance, we do not need players who just couldn’t give a shit and Robinho fits into that category well.
Same with Adebayor, sets off like a house on fire then what? bugger all that’s what.
Then we look at Bellamy and Tevez to name just two, these guys play their socks off every game and in Shay Given we have a goalie worth far more than the £5M paid for him.
6th in the premier and in the semi’s of the Carling Cup, to my way of thinking that aint so bad, Hughes should have been given more time, time which would have borne fruit in terms of success
Watched the Chelsea game on DVR. It was nice to see the ref making them retake the penalty because of encroachment by other players. Last week (I think) there were many penalties and player encroachment was so bad (to within about 5 yards when the kick was taken) that I looked up the rules to see if they had changed.
While Chelsea players eventually got the message and (apart from Drogba getting about a foot into the area) stayed back, the WHU players were still charging into the area. Were they not aware that if Lampard missed and only WHU players offended, the ref should order it to be retaken?
Man City 2 Stoke 0 gives Mancini a first win as manager and also cements City’s place as 6th in the premier league with a game in hand.
Robinho played like an utter twat, no confidence at all and this is a bloke that cost £32.5 million. Time for him to either shape himself or be sold off to the highest bidder.
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Rochdale drew 2-2 at Crewe and remain in pole position in Div 2 although their lead has been cut to 5 pts.
Up the Dale
I thought it very interesting that one of the stories during the week was Mancini saying that Bellamy would have to toe the line or be subject to punishment. That’s the player who is the leading scorer and the leader in assists. Way to go, good way to stamp out that reported player rebellion. :dubious:
I’m guessing Bellamy will be gone during either the coming transfer window, or the one at the end of the season.
No man is bigger than the club and Mancini appears to have made this quite clear, something that MH failed to do.
I doubt Bellamy will be gone as you appear to think, my feeling is that he’ll be at the club for quite some time. It’s players like Bellamy that we need, players who fight for every ball and get thoroughly pissed off if their team mates dont give 100%
Interestingly enough, today’s headline is about how Petrov disliked Hughes. Wouldn’t surprise me to find that the international stars were cool on him, or that they had a perception that he favored domestic players. I think one thing that will certainly be true of Mancini is that he will be comfortable managing a team with a cosmopolitan, international flavor.
Massive six-pointer going on between the Gunners and the Villans right now, all knotted up at nils. If Villa can take full points with them out of the Emirates, it would be one heck of a way to wind up the first half of the season!
And another half-season note: Foxes are sitting in 4th, with a game in hand, behind Newcastle (clear 1st, and no question they are coming back up this season), the Baggies (second by only 2pts, and not so clear they will be coming back up), and Forest. I’m looking for Leicester to put a good push on and finish in that 2d spot; Baggies and Forest can chew each other up and spit one of the two of them out to take the third.
Up the Dale!
Hull 1-3 ManU. My word, our defense is atrocious…worst in the league, in fact. Even worse, word is that we won’t be making a single January signing since no one wants to buy up our misfits.
Something drastic needs to happen, and soon.
Seems to me this idea of playing on Christmas Monday is a bit silly when you played on Christmas Saturday! Two games in three days is massively difficult to do, especially at the level of the Premiership. :eek:
Rochdale putting a major hurt on Morecambe. I think there is no question that this year, they are going up! But they won’t be playing against Leeds in Division One, because Leeds are leaving everyone in the dust in that division, and will be in the Championship for certain. Where they will NOT be playing against Newcastle, who are quite clearly coming back up to the Premiership. Virtually every level of promotable football down to the Conference has a clear promotion candidate. Very weird.
Like what? Sale to a Chinese consortium? They don’t have the money or the talent. It’s a one man Rooney show and he can’t last forever at this pace.
Chelsea will miss Drogba.
I fully intended to go first to watch Rochdale and then travel to Wolverhampton to watch City, sadly this did not happen as matters at home needed attention.
Anyway: I went to watch Dale and they destroyed Morecambe 4-1, there is no-way they not gaining promo this season.
Up the Dale
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City beat Wolves 3-0 at Molineaux, Tevez scoring 2, the guy is on a roll
Last nights unexpected defeat of Aston Villa by Liverpool did Man City a favour taking them to 5th in the table just 2 pts behind Spurs with a game in hand.
Thanks you scousers, much appreciated
Intended going to watch Rochdale yesterday but the match was postponed because of ice/snow. As it turned out Bournemouth lost at home so Dale still have a 5pt lead at the top.
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Man City beat Middlesboro’ 1-0 at 'Boro and go into round 4 of the FA Cup.
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The rags entertain Leeds at mould trafford in the 3rd round, I’m hoping Leeds win obviously.
To my eternal shame my sproglet is a Leeds fan
Manure 0 Leeds 1