Mancini cooks up a storm

THERE was a circus at the City of Manchester Stadium yesterday.

Yet nobody was laughing.

Before it began, one prominent English journalist described Roberto Mancini’s opening press conference at his new club as likely to resemble a “bearpit”.

If only it was that civilised.

Mancini was unveiled after replacing the popular Mark Hughes even though City have lost just two matches all season.

Hughes was manager for 77 games, winning 36 times, losing 25 and drawing the remaining 16 encounters; that is a winning percentage of 47%, hardly disastrous for a manager who has had to come to terms with trying to quickly gel together a virtually new starting XI and manage the new and heightened expectations at City.

But the job he was doing was not quick enough for City’s now-now-now owners so cue the entrance into the circus ring of Mancini, a three-times Serie A winner with Inter Milan.

However, he was not the chief ringmaster, that job fell to Garry Cook, the chief executive, who presided over a 41-minute media briefing that can be regarded as little short of disastrous.

He originally outlined that he would not be making any comments other than from a written statement and within that statement he outlined that no discussions to discuss replacing Hughes with Mancini took place until after the Tottenham Hotspur loss last week.

All was going according to plan until Mancini then tripped up one of his new employers by revealing that he had actually met with chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak and owner Sheikh Mansour in London a fortnight ago.

Speaking from a statement, Cook said: “I think it is important for people to know that Roberto was only offered the job after the Spurs game, we negotiated on Thursday and finalised his agreement on Friday. He was not in the stadium on Saturday (for City’s win against Sunderland) as has been reported.”

However, Mancini then outlined that he went for dinner in London with City’s board two weeks ago before claiming that the City managerial position was not mentioned once, suggesting that he merely discussed sport and football in general rather than specific plans to replace Hughes.

So an out of work football manager meets the owner and chairman of the world’s richest football club, which has a manager under pressure, and not once did the matter of a potential vacancy arise?

Mancini must have been expecting the media throng to believe in Santa Claus as well.

“Two weeks ago I met Khaldoon in London,” he said. “Only to speak in general on football – It is possible (to only meet up to discuss sport).

“He wanted to speak about football and football in general and Inter, he is a great person. In Italy it is normal, Khaldoon is a friend of the sport so this was normal.”

Cook then could not resist plunging into the hole he had dug for himself.

His self-imposed plan to ignore any question went out of the window as he set his jaw, clearly riled, and decided to take the press on. It was not pretty.

He backtracked and confirmed that City had indeed spoken to Mancini but only on “general matters,” before suggesting that media mischief was trying to suggest a “conspiracy” had occurred in relation to Hughes’ departure.

“Two weeks ago Roberto met Khaldoon Al-Mubarak in London and after the Spurs game he was contacted for further discussions of a more serious nature,” Cook said.

“The discussions in London were general, they were about football and they were about considering managerial options at that point. I’m going to say something here fellas, it seems to me that there is an overwhelming theory that there is a conspiracy and I want to make some points here.

“We are not going to commit to that and that was not was what happening. There are no conspiracy theories, we need to draw a line and move onto the future.”

Mancini then did his best to get the press conference back onto a more conventional track by trying to convince City’s sceptical fans that he can deliver them the Premier League title next season.

He wants to remain as manager of Manchester City for a “long time” to come. Hughes said that as well. And look what happened to him.

“City is a big club,” he said.

“I intend to stay here for many, many years and I want to contribute to winning many trophies because City has great supporters and I hope we do a good job for them. My squad play to win, always. My target is to arrive in the top four – but it’s my objective, my target. I think it’s possible,” he added. “Next year we want to win the Premier League.”