Posted by Mehdi

On Sunday Manchester City faced Chelsea in a title eliminator. Mancini lined up with 3 defensive midfielders (Barry, De Jong & Yaya Toure) and with Tevez unfit the much hyped but as yet to deliver Dzeko was deployed as the lone striker while village idiot Mario Balotelli watched from the bench. Trademark Mancini catenaccio with trademark results. Manchester City's defeat, hot on the heals of elimination from the Europa League at the hands of Dynamo Kiev, leaves them nervously looking over their shoulder at 5th placed Tottenham. Nevertheless experts and non experts alike will claim Mancini is on course to deliver this season's primary objective i.e. 4th place and Champions League football but despite what is said publicly, privately the clubs obscenely rich owners cannot be happy with the lack of progress Mancini has made during his 16 months in charge :

	Coach		P	W	D	L	F	A	PTS	PPG	GPG	GCPG
	Hughes 2009-2010		17	7	8	2	33	27	29	1.71	1.94	1.59
	Mancini 2009-2010		21	11	5	5	40	18	38	1.81	1.90	0.86
	Mancini 2010-2011		30	15	8	7	45	27	53	1.77	1.50	0.90

PPG : Points Per Game
GPG : Goals Per Game
GCPG : Goals Conceded Per Game

When Mancini took over from Hughes City were in 6th place, 12 points behind leaders Chelsea with a game in hand. As it stands they are in 4th place and 10 points behind the leaders Manchester United. Despite having spent €198 million on transfers this season Manchester City have not made any significant progress. The club are averaging less points per game, conceding more goals per game and scoring considerably less than last season as the table shows. Mancini conforms to the worst stereotypes of Italian football, the defensive straightjacket a succession of coaches (Liedholm, Sacchi, Zeman, Zaccheroni, Ancelotti, Prandelli, Spalletti etc, etc) worked hard to destroy. Mancini's team are overly defensive catenaccio merchants who play miserly, destructive football, especially away from home where he adopts the "a draw is a good result" philosophy. Mancini may well take Manchester City into the Champions League, he may even win the FA Cup but if the club are to break the Manchester United / Chelsea duopoly and actually win a league title they need a more progressive coach. You cannot win the Premier League by playing catenaccio as the supposed tactical genius Rafael Benitez found to his cost.