It's been a tough week for Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini, and the Italian has been particularly vocal about refereeing decisions, injuries and other issues that he feels are impacting on his team. Some people may be sympathetic to Mancini's 'plight', but Liverpool legend Mark Lawrenson is not one of them.
As we've seen repeatedly, Lawro does not minces his words when it comes to football, and in his weekly Column for The Mirror, he was typically blunt about Mancini:
"Roberto Mancini will not be getting much sympathy from other Premier League managers right now, and he’s showing the first signs of not being able to handle the pressure.
"Injuries, lots of games and refereeing decisions. Oh come on, Roberto, do you really think Manchester City are a special case? Welcome to reality! City have spent £333m on players and have a lot more quality, star names and depth to choose from.
"So if that’s being hard done by then City are being absolutely hammered. In other words, stop moaning and realise that every club gets injuries and bad decisions.
"Every sign suggests that Mancini is not handling it well. And that will only go to please Sir Alex Ferguson. In fact, it will be music to his ears".
Jaimie Kanwar
As we've seen repeatedly, Lawro does not minces his words when it comes to football, and in his weekly Column for The Mirror, he was typically blunt about Mancini:
"Roberto Mancini will not be getting much sympathy from other Premier League managers right now, and he’s showing the first signs of not being able to handle the pressure.
"Injuries, lots of games and refereeing decisions. Oh come on, Roberto, do you really think Manchester City are a special case? Welcome to reality! City have spent £333m on players and have a lot more quality, star names and depth to choose from.
"So if that’s being hard done by then City are being absolutely hammered. In other words, stop moaning and realise that every club gets injuries and bad decisions.
"Every sign suggests that Mancini is not handling it well. And that will only go to please Sir Alex Ferguson. In fact, it will be music to his ears".
Jaimie Kanwar
Liverpool should SACK KD for playing 5 defenders against a team that never attacked - disgraceful!
ReplyDeleteLawro and mincing in the same article!!!! Careful
ReplyDeleteLiverpool should SACK KD for playing 5 defenders against a team that never attacked - disgraceful!
ReplyDeleteDamn it, was hoping to be the first one in here pointing out the irony in the lawro mincing paradox. It terms of not being able to handle the pressure how did the mighty reds do against stoke today ?
ReplyDeleteLawro is a dickhead, in the style of Joey "could you get anymore biased mr mincer!"
ReplyDeleteMancini is the most astute and intelligent manager in the game, and Man CITY will win the league
ReplyDeleteRight, because other managers have never moaned about bad reffing, injuries and a heavy schedule. I'm not a city fan but these issues piss off all managers. The implication here is that he has no right to moan because they are Man City!
ReplyDeleteYou are obviously joking about Mancini ! HE IS A PLONKER ! However I do think City have a good chance of winning the title.
ReplyDeleteOf course they aren't a special case! They've got the wrong suffix!
ReplyDeleteThis does not reflect very well on Liverpool. With all the furore over Suarez Evra, is it wise for these Liverpool legends to make it a point to pick on foreign mangers and players in the premier League.
ReplyDeleteHansen has his ongoing issues with Villas Boas over Bosingwa and David Luiz who Hansen has decided to brand as being quite poor but he doesn't point out that quite a lot of Chelsea' defensive frailties lie with Terry. The Terry issue mirrors the Carragher case at Liverpool where the majority of fans were so bitter over our defensive issues earlier on pinning the blame on either Agger or Skyrtel while Carragher was immune to criticism. Carra's injury and time out of the first team subsequently saw us holding the best defensive record in the league until the reverse to City.
The same will happen to Chelsea who are chopping and changing till they realise the defensive issues remain because the weak link is really Terry.
Now Lawrenson has also decided to go on the Mancini attack which while raising some issues is quite undignified given how every other manager complains but Lawro chose to attack Mancini even though there was the likes of Neil Warnock bitterly complaining about referees before he was sacked but pundit Lawro did not criticise Warnock who obviously was struggling to deal with pressure then.
If you join the dotted lines a worrying theme emerges that pundits find it easier to attack the foreign element of the premier league than their own fellow Brits.
The barbed Liverpool conferences by Kenny are hardly a ringing endorsement of copying with pressure because of the defensive nature most questions are met with and also that with every Liverpool under-performance the grumpiness or look of resignation seem to get worse. This will not get highlighted I am sure.
The press seemingly are not allowed to talk about the under-performing Liverpool players such as Carroll and the same pundits hardly address the ineptness of Carroll in a candid manner they are free to do when they criticise David Luiz for example.
These ex players will always be linked with Liverpool hence are in some ways ambassadors without even being on the payroll of Liverpool so the point is can Liverpool afford to be associated with race issues and seemingly picking on foreigners and I have really tried hard not to call this unwitting xenephobic tendencies because I do believe they dont realise how it appears to the billions who watch worldwide according to the premier league figures.
Spot on Pete. Also, I didn't watch much football over xmas but since xmas, all i have seen is Kompany get sent off, Johnson get away with an identical tackle against Mancini's team, And then Figeroa blatantly handballing it on the halfway line and the ref only giving him a yellow card, despite the fact that Aguero would have been through on goal if the player hadn't handballed it. I would expect any manager to mention the inconsistencies here. For Lawrenson to say Mancini can't hack it, well he won Serie A three times, albeit once being given to them. So, I think he knows how to win a title with a team that has been waiting for some time to challenge. Strangely, though, I still think City need another striker now that Tevez is not available.
ReplyDelete