City and Mancini not for changing

THERE may be a growing sense at Eastlands that the end is nigh for manager Roberto Mancini – at least, it felt that way when the Italian was jeered by the majority of the stadium as he took off Carlos Tevez late in this latest drab stalemate – but all evidence points to the contrary.

Worse yet, for that growing army of City supporters who believe that the club has not and cannot progress with the cautious Mancini at the helm, there is no evidence that their leader will change his ways as he attempts to steer the club into the promised land of next season’s Champions League.

To hear Mancini claim, as he did after the Birmingham game, that the problem his club currently has is that, apart from Tevez, they have nobody capable of scoring a goal bordered on the surreal.

After spending €376m on new players under the club’s current ownership, do City fans not have the right to believe they should have more than one player able to find the net?

Two things are clear: City’s management team of Garry Cook and Brian Marwood told owner Sheikh Mansour that Mancini was the right man for the job 11 months ago so dare not now inform their employer that they were wrong; and, two, Mancini will not, under any circumstances, abandon his cautious approach.

His assistant David Platt confirmed that after the game, with words that will not exactly offer comfort to the growing “Mancini out” movement within the blue half of Manchester.

“Listen, I have known him long enough and he goes on with his road,” said the former England midfielder.

“He’s got his road, he’s got his beliefs, philosophies about how you win things and win football matches.

“And when you look at what he has won in his career, it is not a bad road to be on, to be honest with you. And he follows that. He’s always been single-minded to follow that.’’

Mancini’s main defence – and if anyone knows how to defend, it is him – was that with Mario Balotelli and Emmanuel Adebayor both unavailable through injuries, Tevez is his only possible source of a goal.

Even if that claim is completely accurate, it is complicated by the fact that reports continue to surface that the manager and Adebayor have fallen out, quite dramatically, on occasion recently, just as Mancini did last term with Craig Bellamy.

Further, while Balotelli has looked a raw, brilliant talent on his occasional appearance for City to date, the striker clearly brings with him enough baggage to down a jumbo jet.

Balotelli might be the answer to City’s problems, then again, anything could happen with the volatile youngster.

All of which explains why, when Cook and Marwood meet the Sheikh this week for a pre-arranged meeting in Abu Dhabi, the topic of January transfer signings will dominate.

The names of Liverpool’s Fernando Torres and Wolfsburg’s highly-regarded Edin Dzeko continue to dominate the transfer rumour mill although whether they prove to be attainable as early as January is open to debate.

In the meantime, City, Mancini and Platt must “struggle” on with the mere £376m worth of talent at their disposal.

“We’ve got to continue to create chances and get people in the box and become more ruthless, I think,” added Platt. “Yes, we need to take some of that goalscoring burden off Carlos and continue to work to create chances to get people into areas where we can put dangerous balls into the box and more importantly get people into the box but sometimes players go back to type.

“You look at what we’ve got on the pitch today – David Silva, Adam Johnson, who are more creators than actual goalscorers.’’

For Birmingham, the hard-earned point provided them with very different emotions to the ones being experienced by the home City. Their only moments of real concern came from a Tevez “goal,” which was correctly ruled out for handball and a moment, early in the second half, when Stephen Carr cleared a James Milner shot off the line.

Despite still seeking a first away league win of the season, Birmingham manager Alex McLeish could draw great optimism from his team’s defensive performance and conceded that he identified early in the process that the key to stopping City is to stop Tevez, their only apparent match winner at present.

“Tevez has been a bit of talisman for them, hasn’t he? He’s a terrific player, he’s a buzz-bomb,” said McLeish.

“He came close in the early part of the second half but our players played very well against him and they deserve a big pat on the back, for playing against a top player in world football and acquitting themselves the way they did.’’