Manchester City FC can confirm that it has today terminated the contract of Mark Hughes. In giving reason for the termination Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said: “Prior to the current season beginning, with significant investment in players and infrastructure in place, the consensus between the Board and coaching staff was that appropriate agreed targets should be set for the 2009/2010 season. “The targets were agreed as a result of the player acquisition strategy of the club being radically accelerated in the summer as a result of very favourable conditions for any buying club. It was also based on the fact that the infrastructure of the club had been overhauled completely at great cost in order to create the best possible environment for the team. “A return of two wins in 11 Premier League games is clearly not in line with the targets that were agreed and set. Sheikh Mansour and the Board felt that there was no evidence that the situation would fundamentally change. This is a particularly difficult announcement given the personal investment over the past 15 months on all sides and we would like to put on record our respect for and thanks to Mark Hughes and we wish him the best in his future career.” Manchester City Football Club can confirm the appointment, with immediate effect on a permanent contract, of Roberto Mancini and are also pleased to announce that Brian Kidd will join Roberto as assistant manager. Commenting on the appointment, Khaldoon Al Mubarak said: “Roberto is a hugely experienced manager with a proven track record of winning trophies and championships. His experience and track record speak for themselves. What is absolutely clear is that Roberto believes in Manchester City’s potential to achieve at the highest level and importantly in his own ability to make this happen. My hope is that our incredible fans will join us in welcoming Roberto to the football club.” Mark Bowen, Eddie Niedzwiecki, Kevin Hitchcock and Glyn Hodges have also left the Club and further appointments will be announced in due course.
I wonder if he will try to bring Adriano to the club hahah or maybe Viera. Lets see what Mancini is made of!!
I don't think that this was the right decision, but i will hold judgement on Mancini until he has proven himself either way.
A well-crafted argument to be sure. And although I was not a big supporter of Hughes (I am fairly sure he would not have taken us past a top seven side), I agree with MVF in reserving judgement of Mancini. The next month or so should be interesting. I continue to support City as I have my entire life.
MVF - I agree, especially since I am really, really unconvinced by Mancini as a manager. If he couldn't do the business @ Inter, why are we convinced he'll do it here? He won Serie A at one of its weakest moments in history, and his teams flamed out of Europe repeatedly. Pretty so-so signings as well from what I remember. Having said that, one thing I'll agree with the official statement is the line that there was nothing you could see that said that the situation would improve unless drastic steps were taken. Now that Mancini is the manager, everyone needs to give him more or less unconditional support over the next 18 months. Hopefully he can work some magic with Robinho and Adebayor. If we win the next 20 matches in a row, there are still a few things we can be thankful for that Hughes brought. He definitely brought discipline to the club. He bought De Jong, Bellamy and Given, who have been worth 20 points or so in the last year. He loaned out the disaster that is Jo, and showed Elano the Malcontented the door. I think in terms of a team ethic, the club is better off now than it was under SGE where it seemed that no one was in charge. Not sure what sort of disciplinarian Mancini is, but I would imagine that he is not much of an iron fist, so maybe the residue of Hughes' hardline approach will keep the club going until Mancini finds his feet. Wow, just wow. I was yelling at the TV this morning at the commentator who was talking about Hughes getting fired before Christmas -- boy was I wrong. I always assumed he had until May to get things right given the fact that Cook had restructured the club just for Hughes. But once Tevez, Lescott, Toure and Adebayor arrived, the stated goals of the club went up. I think today's move is less about our league position than how we got there... if you change what happened at the end of the derby and change the Burnley result, Hughes is probably still the manager. But like I said last year, it is shocking how feeble-minded this team is with regard to conceding goals given what a hard nosed image Hughes has. Oh well, good luck Sparky -- wonder if Liverpool would consider him...
I have to ask you guys this - what about the way this was handled?! We lost 0-3 midweek if they wanted him out why not do it then why wait until saturday night, a few hours after a win?! Had we lost or drew then ok I can understand but to do this hours after a win...?! I'm not a big fan of hughes and especially how he spent his money but this is not exactly making citys owners look professional to do this to a man who was here for a year and half and from all accounts did a lot of work for the club away from the pitch.
Handled very poorly -- Mancini's been sittin' on the sofa the last 18 months eating cereal -- if you wanted him Thursday, you could have had him. If you wanted him during one of the international weeks in the Fall, you could have had him. To do it this way is pretty unprofessional in my opinion.
Yeah Fever, I agree. Really akward way of handeling things. The Spurs loss was the right time to do it. They should at least have waited a day or two before saking him after today's win. I don't think this was the right time to sack Hughes though. Whether it had been after the loss at Spurs or today. Yes we'd only won 2 of the last however many. And a number of the draws we had should have been wins. But we are still in a good position in the table. 6th place and still within striking distance of a top 4 spot. I had my doubts about Hughes as a tactitian (and to some extent as a man manager), but he's built a good team.
Mancini is a pretty lucky guy who was fortunate enough to be in charge of Inter during the Calciopoli scandal and the subsequent period of transition their rivals went through. He still has a lot to do to prove himself as a manager. He has been sitting around doing nothing for a reason.
I agree that it was not exactly the right time but, then again, I don't think any time is the "right" time. Hughes is a professional manager and although I am sure he is not happy with the decision he will accept it and move on. It could have very well been the case that the board and he could have been on a weekly assessment basis and it finally came to this based on fixture results and backroom factors. We are not to know the complete reasoning for it or the timing but I agree wholeheartedly with the chairman and others on here that I had not seen much to give me the impression anything was going to change. We barely (barely) edged out the win today and with as many games we've played like that we're bound to have fortune fall our way. I still have some work to do to know enough Mancini to make educated comments but I would like to hope he offered enough to our owners to instill more confidence (very little to begin with) in our potential than Hughes. Time will tell. I cannot emphasise enough, however, that I was convinced that Hughes was never goingto manage us to a title or near it; his tactical thinking was nearly nonexistent, I wondered if some of the discontent stemmed from a very real arrogance on his part, and whether certain staffing choices were actually beneficial. We (ever City supporter) are all going to have to endure the Skypocrisy bombarding the airwaves and fiber optical cable for the next few weeks and try to debate amongst ourselves in a constructive way as to not further distract from the club's intensified mission. CTID
Was Mancini not considered the Best Serie A manager in 2008?? Are we not talking about Mark Hughes, who coached our team to more goals scored upon the F*ckin Pompey? Mancini excelled in the serie a despite the fact that the Entire league transpired against Inter. Isn't about time that city have a manager that speaks more then one language (well aside from Sven)? Do we really need David Bentley? If we allowed Hughes to stay, it would mean even more and more money spent to get players that he rates but for some reason, look like a complete mess in HIS SYSTEM. Especially on Defence. I mean where are the glimmer of hopes that provide reason for keeping him on. Chelsea missed sitters and penz against us. We should've had a player sent off vs Arsenal. We tied the scousers but that is becoming less and less impressive. I mean at least Sven could beat United! And honesly we Tied practically everyone else... which in all honesty is not horrible, but Watching week after week, we saw results that just were blatent representations of oragnizationally weak, Tactically confused, and above all, UNMOTIVATED performances. People have faith in Hughes and I really don't understand why. I mean it's not like, someone can at all compare his prior success to the impressive CV that the Itallian has with him. I'm proud and excited for our future, and honestly this league is so SHITTY, we might as well give it a go!
His contract with Inter was only terminated at the end of October so he hasn't been legally allowed to do much more than procrastinate and probably watch lots of football. He has apparently been taking English lessons to improve his English skills for a while now, as England has been his ideal destination for some time. A young manager with moderate success at one of the emerging clubs in world football appears to be a good match in theory. If he can balance the team better - sort out our defensive side without too much sacrifice of our effective and dangerous attacking force - then this should be a default upgrade.
So your lucky... when you play in a league that Fixes Matches against your team. Wow. Now that you mention it... I'm glad United got 7 minutes of Injury time against us. And am so thankful for Wolverhampton playing their Junior Varsity against a... lets be real... Pathetic United side. It is us who are Lucky. You've shown me the light... ********************.
I'm not surprised to find you completely dodge most of my post and focus on the small section that suits you. Mancini has been sniffing around English clubs for a while. If he had a realistic chance of employment prior to Man City then his contract dispute would have been settled previously. As it was Mancini was happy to ride out his contract for as long as it suited him. I have no doubt he has been lined up by Man City's owners for quite a few months. What I think has happened here is the owners, new to football, have quickly looked at who was available who had success at a big club and was interested in the job. Mancini initially fits the criteria but when you delve beyond the surface at look at what lead to his relative success at Inter, namely the Calciopoli scandal, then a lot of questions remain. Your pathetic posturing and sniping is notorious on these boards. Instead of effectively trolling your own board you should show some maturity for a change and engage with the discussion.
dodge? What are you catapulting your conjecture now? Your an Idiot... the reason he didn't sign another contract was right there in front of your untanned face but you had to stick your virgin little pecker in the debate didn't you.
It is not difficult to understand. Even for you. If you are incapable of posting in a mature manner then do not bother posting at all.
Did you see Messi lift another trophy today!! Hey Teso I'm planning on buying 4 games in South Africa to watch the USA... life is good buddy
Your post was short and the typical asinine ramblings of a rag fanboy here to get a rise out of people, as you've done before. juggernaut's post sums it up but you attempt to penalize Mancini for his original (Inter) success after match fixing that probably worked *against* his team. The logic doesn't work, plus Mancini had become one of Italy's best young managers before going to Inter which is what got him appointed as manager by one of Italy's biggest clubs. Italy being a hotbed of good managers, we have grabbed one of the better available options out there right now, with our first two choices (Mourinho and Hiddink) most likely unavailable and our team not performing at a level expected of it's squad (which it could be if Hughes had put attention into the defensive frailties which have plagued us so - and I would hope Mancini is above such easy shortcomings as Hughes', like these: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=19520478&postcount=6 ). A young manager for a reborn club, it's quite a good combination and Mancini now has a platform to fulfill his potential at the biggest upstart project world football has seen since Chelsea's emergence. He also has Brian Kidd, a former United and City player I'm sure you're familiar with from his important part in Fergie's successes), as his assistant manager. Now, shouldn't you go back to the prawn sandwich brigade and worry about your own team's waning performances, ungodly debt, and below par young players? I know it is a natural response to lash out at others when your own empire crumbles but this is ridiculous. I laughed so hard when I heard one of my relatives call Obertan the new Cantona. Oh, how the mighty are falling...
Nani the New Ronaldo!! Yeah, Get in there Stu!! Teso would respond but he's busy finding a moderator.
I'll ignore the parts where you stoop to thejuggernaut's level of immaturity. Inter were given their first Serie A title by default after Juventus were stripped of the title and relegated. Inter than signed Ibrahimovic, their key player, from Inter along with Vieira. In the following season they did not need to contend with Juventus while most of their main challengers had points deductions. Inter and Maninci benefited enormously from Calciopoli. The claims that Inter have been the victims of refereeing decisions is laughable considering the countless that have went their way since. Stating otherwise indicates a complete lack of knowledge towards Serie A. Inter have been involved in several scandals with their involvement in Calciopoli being subject to debate but even moving beyond that you can read up about the Telecom Italia scandal. Luckily for Inter the law prevents them for being sanctioned as the time limit for punishment has expired. My logic and knowledge are spot on. The same cannot be said for Man City fans in relation to Serie A and their new manager. You know full well that Mancini's record at Inter is relevant particularly as his appointment to Man City is based on it. Perhaps instead of pathetic sniping you should take two seconds to look into you new manager and address the clear issues that have been raised in regard to his record and your owners.