Mancgester City must keep nerve and sticky by Mancini

DOWN IN THE DUMPS ... Roberto Mancini looks glum after seeing his City side lose at Tottenham

MANCHESTER CITY’S defeat at Tottenham yesterday has prompted fresh debate about Roberto Mancini’s position.
Wrongly in my opinion.

A fortnight ago he was being hailed for outwitting Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford to win his third Manchester derby in four in the league.

Now suddenly he is not the man to drive City on next season in some people’s eyes.

People jump to these judgments and I just hope the City owners don’t do the same.

A lot of Mancini doubters base their views on this season.

Yet in his three full seasons in charge Mancini will, in all likelihood, have finished third, second and first and delivered two FA Cups.

That, for me, in such a short space of time is success.

Everyone points at the money spent, and yes, there has been a huge investment. That does not directly translate to silverware.

I know that from my time at Newcastle where we spent a lot of money and fell short.

Liverpool have spent huge amounts in the past trying to win the title.

Chelsea continue to spend big but that has not meant success every season.
What Mancini managed to do was gel the talent together to produce a trophy-winning team and that deserves credit.

To say ‘I could do it with all that cash’ is nonsense.

Mancini has still had to manage the expectations, talent, egos and take on the best in terms of Manchester United.

This title defence has not been great, I admit. Neither was ours at Blackburn.
In both situations the club needed to strengthen from that point of strength after winning the Premier League.

We didn’t at Blackburn and neither did City in the summer.

Mancini told the board what big-money signings were needed to push the team on and they didn’t get them.

That’s not his fault.

Meanwhile United were getting the man to vastly improve them from a position where they finished level on points with City.

Robin van Persie has been the big difference.

Mancini’s detractors will point at his failure in Europe.

In both Champions League seasons they have failed to get out of the group stage.

Last season they were unlucky after getting 10 points.

This season they were drawn in the toughest group of the lot and couldn’t do it. But it is not as if their neighbours have been pulling up trees in Europe over the last two seasons either.

Fergie’s men were knocked out in the group stage last season and in the last 16 this.

City have come a long way in a very short space of time from being also-rans to winning the title.

You cannot expect them to simply go on and dominate — not with United around.

Mancini will know what it needs to make City bounce back.

The mistakes of last summer will not be made again.

They will come back stronger.

City are building something still and to change the manager who has done so much to start it all would be wrong.

Unless they want to be regarded in the same vein as Chelsea, whose knees jerk at the slightest slip-up, they need to keep faith with Mancini.

From what I gather, he retains the support of 99 per cent of the City faithful with his name sung at every game.

True, there will have been plenty of grumbles after yesterday’s capitulation at Spurs.

But Manchester United didn’t get to where they are today by chopping and changing when things temporarily took a downturn and neither should City.