ABOVE: Manuel Pellegrini must bring trophies and unity to Manchester City
We want a football concept so that the basic way we play is shared by the whole organisation
City chief executive Ferran Soriano
MANUEL PELLEGRINI has been told to create a Manchester City family – and repair the havoc wreaked by Roberto Mancini.
The Chilean will be named City boss at the start of June and has been left in little doubt what Etihad chiefs want.
Put simply, trophies and squad harmony are to be delivered – or else.
City
chief executive Ferran Soriano has laid bare his frustrations at seeing
Mancini’s reign crumble under a wave of mediocre results and
mind-numbing inconsistency.
And
having seen the dressing room turn against the Italian at the bitter
end, the former Barcelona exec knew the axe had to fall.
Even winning the FA Cup would not have saved the Premier League title-winning boss, he has now revealed.
City
have turned to Pellegrini, 59, praying he will be the calming figure
City believe is needed to turn them into domestic and Euro kings.
There can be no more in-fighting. No more snapping and snarling behind the scenes.
Soriano wants ex-Real Madrid boss Pellegrini to bring some love and attacking style flowing back to the Etihad next season.
“Age is not relevant at this point, but with the kind of squad we have, we want a senior manager,” he said.
“We want a manager who knows about football.
“But we also want somebody who knows about man-management.
“This
is something we are convinced about – myself, the board, the owner –
that it is impossible for us to win the Champions League in the end if
we don’t have a group that behaves like a family.
“Our group is difficult, only in the sense that it is diverse in terms of nationalities and languages and so on.
“But they are also very mature people. I can see that for myself because I have seen them, I have seen the players
behave and how they behaved when the manager went.
“If they work with a senior manager, they can do great things.
“We want a manager who is stable but I’m saying also that there are cycles and the managers can change with cycles.
“I think three, four, five years is one cycle. Maybe a manager can do one or two but people get tired.
“People need another way, another excitement but that’s normal.
“I’m
not saying the manager should be changed every season, I’m not saying
the manager should be changed every time we lose – why the contract if
that was the case?”
But
in a clear reference to rivals Manchester United and their recently
departed boss Sir Alex Ferguson, he added: “Don’t expect City or any
club to have a manager for 26 years because that was extraordinary.
What we want is not the image of unity. We want the unity.”
With
that glorious, unforgettable Sergio Aguero title-winning goal from
2012 still fresh in City minds, the decision to send Mancini packing
hurt.
But
the Etihad top brass couldn’t take any more ups and downs – finishing
11 points behind United coupled with a disastrous Champions League
campaign was simply not good enough.
Soriano said: “Nobody wants to change a manager but we all want to play good football and we all want to win.
“Would he have stayed if we won the FA Cup? No. This is a long-term decision taken with a lot of careful analysis.
“There has been one manager for 26 years at one club but look at the other clubs.
“I
think for the new owners of City to have had only two managers in five
years is very good. It shows the willingness to have a very stable
managerial team.
“Roberto
Mancini did very well for the club. He changed the mentality. He
changed it from a club that was not winning to a winning club and that
is very hard.
“We are thankful. But we are now looking for several things.
“We
are looking to play good football and to win. I said that in the right
order. If you play good football you will win. We believe we have a
fantastic squad.
“It would be hard for us to change the players for any others in the UK and that includes the champions.
“My position is that we don’t need to change our players.
“We want to play better. We want a football concept so that the basic way we play is shared by the whole organisation.
“We’re asking the new manager to have close collaboration with the youth football and to work to achieve this.
“In
Barcelona we won the Champions League with nine out of 11 players
home-grown. And you have seen it at United. It’s consistent.
“You can’t win one year after the next if you don’t have a core of players that have been together for a long time.
“The
squad we have is a squad capable of winning the Premier League and
shouldn’t be kicked out at the first group stage of the Champions
League.
“We have better players than that.”
Manuel, it’s over to you.
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