With Roberto Mancini just a faint memory now, City have looked towards a not-so-but-maybe unorthodox choice in leadership in the form of Manuel “The Engineer” Pellegrini. To give a brief history of the man 59-year-old was born in Santiago, Chile and spent the entire days of his playing career with one club, Univerisdad Chile, 13 years playing for the Chilean side he then went on to manage them for a further three years. Now this incredible loyalty shown by Pellegrini, goes a long way in football and a long way in describing his personality, humble, reserved and tactical.
Although on a not so Chelsea scale of chaos, there has always been a sense of instability at Manchester City, whether it was the madcap adventures of Mario Balotelli that made it seem this way, the uncertain uncertainty of City has always been there, even after the young Italian left. It was the older, shrewder authority of a certain Italian that seemed to disjoint and unravel City in this past season. Roberto Mancini was by the end of his reign a spent force, his FA cup and English Premier League trophy didn’t help him convince the owners he was their man and after all the short comings in all competitions, he was inevitably sacked.
A certain word to sum up City’s season would be lacklustre, lacklustre at best, yes second in the premier league is far from a failure, but the performances that got them there were by the their standards, bad. An FA cup final defeat to Wigan summed it up and ushered in a new era, with the man dubbed “The Fixer” being chosen as the leader to bring success, his calm demure got him through a scathing, ill-fated spell time at Madrid and his time at Villarreal and most recently Malaga have put his knack of taking the shaky wheel of a club and steading the to a degree of success. His time at Malaga will serve him well with dealing with oil rich owners, although Manchester City’s might not be as volatile, there is a common theme between the two cubs, money equals power and where there’s money there’s expectation. Pellegrini, I feel is the man to take City forward.
By Michael King