Goes to show that you can buy lots of talent, but you cannot buy team unity and a sense of commitment to the club and its fans.
Man City has loads of money evidently, they could purchase the most talented players in the world and create a team many of their fellow peers can only dream about.
When Mancini claimed he did not have enough players and they are mostly tired out after the recent spate of games, I thought the Italian must have gone cuckoo... afterall many managers in the world will love to have any player from his massive squad in their first eleven.
But for now, I probably get what Mancini is saying. He is desperate... not for player numbers but for passionate players who will die for the City cause. Obviously, it is easier said than done. Mancini has some blame to take, he was too quick to ship Wright Phillips and Michael Johnson away. These are players who are ardent City fans, they lived and breathed the cause but were deemed "not good enough" for his squad of mega stars. Even Craig Bellamy was a hard worker who is the ultimate professional when asked to do the job. Mancini chose to place his trust in a bunch of spoilt and unruly "superstars", notably Balotelli and now Carlos Tevez. They had shown time and again they will rather not be at Man City, which means its only the financial rewards that have their greedy agents wanting to keep them on Man City's roster.
Mancini has a big problem to handle. Squad disunity is infectious. And when there is no obvious leader at the club, Mancini runs the risk of losing his dressing room to the sulkers like Carlos and Mario. Edin Dzeko throwing his weight around after being substituted speaks further volumes of how much respect the players have for the manager's decisions.
Man City has the hallmark of a ill disciplined group of super egos. No disrespect to Mancini, but Mourinho have at least on his Real Madrid squad a team of players that will stand behind him no matter what nonsensical stunts he throw, i.e. poking the eye of the Barca assistant coach or ignoring the press. Mourinho always has an upper hand because he always knew how to get the players to be on his side, sometimes to the extent of player and manager against club and board.
This could be just a start of Mancini stamping his authority. We will see Carlos condemned to the reserves for sure. Dzeko probably got a earful or a fine for his stupid protests after being substituted. We will see how Mancini deals with his boy star Balotelli when he steps out of line again.
Imagine Tevez pulling his weight at Man Utd. Then again, he will never be able to take it that far with Sir Alex at the fore.
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