Three and in – not just another football blog

Lawrence Gray-Hodson

Every so often Lawrence Gray-Hodson, a man who made his name in the upper reaches of Division 2 in the 1970s and 80s as well as being a former Scotland and England international, writes a column exclusively for Three and in.

This week he opines on Roberto Mancini’s touchline behaviour
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You’ve got to ask: what is Roberto Mancini? Is he a dapper, scarf-sporting, handsome footballer manager who loves a good ragu, or is he a magician?

If it’s the former then he should get on with the job he knows best: alienating players and getting his team to win matches. Too often in recent weeks though he seems to be on the sidelines wishing he had a deck of cards to play with.

Clichy gets fouled, Mancini flicks the eight of clubs at the ref. Oh look, a trip on Milner and there’s Mancini with the ace of diamonds. Edward Dzeko finds himself flattened by a beautifully timed two-footed tackle and there’s Robert Scarfino shuffling the entire deck. And despite all these cards being different they have one thing in common. Their colour.

They’re all red. Or yellow. Perhaps it’s the continental influence but seeing Mancini waves cards around like that on the sideline makes me sick to my stomach although not quite sick enough to get sick. Maybe sick enough to do one of those burps where a bit of sick comes up but you swallow it down quickly again.

I remember back in my playing days we’d never have dared wave an imaginary card in the air. It would have been a sign of weakness, almost as if waving an imaginary card meant you had an imaginary friend called Aubrey with whom you played in a make-believe world called Cissy Town. Once, when we played Leeds in the cup, our right back Jack Morgan got kicked in the knee by Billy Bremner.

“You’ve gotta book him for that, ref,” said Morgan.

The ref did nothing and after the game, in the player’s lounge, Bremner and Jack Charlton leathered the tar out of him. Normally you’d defend a teammate but this time we stood back and let them pummel him. It’s one thing shattering a bloke’s kneecap, but asking the ref to book him was going too far.

And this brings me to Mancini’s rank hypocrisy when it comes to tackling. Oh, it’s ok for Vincent Kompany to jump in with two feet but as soon as Glen Johnston did it he was opposed to it. It reminded me of people who say ‘Yes, we should allow tinkers to settle with their caravans in fields near housing estates’, but as soon as these noble, pot-selling people come into their area they’re up in arms.

I’d like to see a new rule brought in to wipe this scourge from the game. Any foreign manager who waves an imaginary card ought to be given a red card themselves. They just don’t understand the game here. It is different when Wayne Rooney does it. He’s got a rapport with the refs, they speak the same language, Rooney has grown up knowing where the line is and never quite crossing it.

Mancini is a new arrival. He needs to learn to respect the customs of the country he’s in. I mean, he wouldn’t go to Saudi Arabia, openly drink a bottle of Pinot Grigio and walk around with a sultan’s daughter who he insists wears a bikini. So why does he think he can wave cards and allow his players to do two-footed tackles?

I like the man, his smartorial elegance has brought a touch of the catwalks of Milan to English football, but leave the card tricks to David Dunblane.

The day Manchester City sacked Mark Hughes was the day they lost the hearts of the English media.  Few managers hold such disproportionately high stock with Fleet Street scribblers as the Welshman, and his dismissal was taken as evidence of a ruthless regime without the patience or know-how necessary to succeed.

What tosh.  Anyone with half a brain can see the difference that a superior manager, Roberto Mancini, has made.  Whatever you might think of their tactics, City are now an organised, functional unit.  To do that so quickly with a group of players thrown together so hastily is impressive.  If Mancini were British he’d be lauded as a genius.

Hughes was also erratic in the transfer market.  This window alone sees City trying to shed a stream of players he brought in: Wayne Bridge has joined West Ham, Emmanuel Adebayor is linked with Madrid and Malaga, and Roque Santa Cruz has gone back to Blackburn on loan.

City’s wealth means mistakes like Santa Cruz can easily be brushed under the carpet, but upon examination he has to go down as one of the all-time Premier League flops.  Hughes pursued him for more than six months, eventually paying £17.5m for the injury prone frontman.  Since then, Santa Cruz has started just eight games, with a further 16 substitute appearances.

For Santa Cruz, the blow has been cushioned by picking up some £6m in wages.  Blackburn, meanwhile, will be laughing: granted, they’d have to make do with watching the likes of Benjani in the interim, but they now have their talismanic striker back – and are up on the deal.

In fact, they’ll be cursing their luck Hughes is no longer in charge at Eastlands.  They could do with £20m or so for 18 months of Christopher Samba.

It’s interesting to read Roberto Mancini talk about the fights at the Man City training ground. The easy assumption to make is that City’s spending has brought together a pack of mercenaries, concerned only with their pay packets, looking to have their egos massaged.

And while there might well be a bad apple, or two, in the squad, the fact is fights are absolutely normal. You have them in your workplace, right? Why should footballers be any different?

I remember when I was playing amateur football in Spain there was a brilliant striker in our team. A really gifted player who could get you a goal at any stage. As well as being a very good player he was a pain in the arse, a shit trainer and, basically, a bit of a cunt.

Every week in training there was a fight with someone but come Saturday’s game there were no problems because everyone knew what he brought to the team. He might have been a cunt but he gave it everything he had when it counted. Now, you can’t really say that’s true of some City players- there’s no way anyone can tell me that they’re getting anything close to that from Emmanuel Adebayor, for example, but isn’t it just City’s lack of a fence around their training ground that makes these stories what they are?

Scraps behind closed doors and away from prying lenses aren’t an issue simply because we don’t hear about them.

It’ll take time for City to achieve proper harmony in their squad. When you buy up players, and expensive ones, at the rate they do there’ll always be some teething problems, but their position in the league suggests it’s not quite the Fight Club some would make it out.

Perhaps the ‘leaf/book’ one is an odd analogy to headline with.  Despite Harpersport’s publication of ‘Wayne Rooney: My Story So Far’, neither Rooney or Tevez strike me as particularly literary figures.  However, they are united by the one book they both understand perfectly well: the cheque-book.

Tevez and Rooney are from opposite sides of the globe, yet their lives and careers have shared several parallels.  Both emerged from urban poverty to make themselves global football superstars with a distinctive, all-action style.  They even went on to become twin strike partners at Manchester United – all too often split up because their games were ‘too similar’.  And latterly, since Tevez’s switch across the city, they have become emblematic of the blue and red divide that splits Manchester.

It’s probably fair to say Tevez’s move to City was motivated, in large part, by money.  Whilst his wages are already exorbitant, he and his agent Kia Joorabchian will have glanced with interest at Wayne Rooney’s flagrant, and successful, wage-raising tactics at United.

Rooney’s demands were eventually met, and a resolution reached.  It’s not hard to imagine that Tevez looked at his importance to City, and wondered if a similar proportional increase might be possible.  Statements talked of missing his family and ‘irreparably broken’ relations with un-named board members.   The reality seems to have been rather different: one meeting today was able to resolve all Tevez’s concerns, and just as with Rooney, his transfer request was withdrawn with immediate effect.

City say no pay rise will be forthcoming, but one wonders if that policy will hold come the summer.  Just a few weeks ago, club and player were renegotiating image rights.  Who would be surprised if a settlement favourable to Tevez and Joorabchian was soon reached?  The Argentine has followed Rooney’s rebellious lead, and strengthened both his hand and his position.  If results like last night’s home defeat to Everton continue, manager Roberto Mancini could find himself the first of the quarrelsome pair out of the door.

Every week Lawrence Gray-Hodson, a man who made his name in the upper reaches of Division 2 in the 1970s and 80s as well as being a former Scotland and England international, writes a column exclusively for Three and in.

This week it’s Man City and Italian managers

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Many years ago I courted a young woman who had been previously engaged to an Italian man. She told me how his love-making had been much more fluent and exciting than mine but very often he got the job done too early. In the end she preferred the functional English stamina that I could provide.

On the football pitch, however, we know that this kind of functionality is part of the Italian game. It has never been renowned for its free-flowing football, its passion or energy. Instead it is a tactical game, like chess on a green board with 22 spaghetti eating pieces (many of whom would have sex with your wife when you went to the toilet). Catenaccio (so named because an Italian manager misheard an English man talking about the cat nap he had during a Turin derby back in the 50s) is to Italian football what punching Norwegians is to Joey Barton. Just something that comes naturally.

Which is why Manchester City fans are going to be bored out of their minds as long as Roberto Mancini is in charge. A typical Italian manager, the emphasis is not on winning games, but not losing. Some might consider this sensible, that not losing immediately increases your chances of winning, but anyone who sat through Wednesday night’s Manchester derby could not have failed to be utterly stupefied by City’s approach.

At home, against a Manchester United so weak Gary Birtles would make them better, they played for a draw. And they got it. Mancini might consider than a success. He had a gameplan, it worked, but by God it was awful to watch. And even if he felt like being more adventurous his genes prevent him from doing so. Italian managers simply can’t make their teams play attacking football. Some might point to Chelsea and Ancelotti but Chelsea just look like they’re playing attacking football because they’re better than everyone else. You can see how much Ancelotti hates it, each week his twitching, disgusted eyebrow betrays him during the post-match interviews.

Put Ancelotti in charge of a mid-table side like City and he’d do exactly the same. The sad part is that it’s not as if City don’t have attacking talent. Tevez, Adebayor, Silva, Santa Cruz, Johnson, Balotelli and Dickov is the kind of striking array that any manager would give his right arm for, yet Mancini persists in playing his three defensive midfielders and expects Tevez to plough a lone furrow up front.  What a waste of resources and money. City have spent a fortune yet Mancini’s formation and tactics are those of a man who is trying to avoid relegation rather than win the league.

City need a change, no doubt about it. There’s no modern equivalent to Brian Clough, sadly. Not even his son Nigel can take that crown as he’s basically a bit rubbish, but that kind of manager would be perfect for Man City. A maverick, a man who sends his teams out to attack and punches his own fans if they don’t like it. Someone who understands the Englishness of the game and how it’s important to win things in this country. Arsene Wenger understood and has, until recently, kept his Frenchness at bay. Is it any coincidence Arsenal’s trophy-less years have come as he’s regressed in a Parisian fashion?

Who that man is I can’t say. It might well be somebody we don’t expect. Could the subtle genius of Ian Holloway make the step up? I suspect he can but I understand why others might think otherwise.  Mick McCarthy’s Wolves play some very good football when they’re not trying to smash opponents into the middle of next week, maybe City need that kind of combination. Ultimately though it’s up to Shake Mansour and Garry Cook to find the right man for the job.

Mancini looks good in a scarf, no doubt about it, but he’s not the right man for Man City.

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Comment below or you can contact Lawrence by email.

Much was made this week about how no British players were nominated for the Ballon d’Or. It was hardly a surprise, in fairness, the only obvious candidate was Wayne Rooney and I suspect it was a combination of his plummeting form and FIFA deciding his off-field antics were too distasteful which saw him miss out.

England’s dismal World Cup didn’t help, the star names like Lampard, Terry, Gerrard and co did nothing much to enhance their reputations, yet you have to wonder if the culture of the English game is still a factor.

This week, Man City manager Roberto Mancini, gave his players a day off after the defeat to Arsenal. The next day pictures and video emerged of Adam Johnson, Shay Given, Gareth Barry and Joe Hart enjoying a late night drinking session with students in Scotland. Roberto Mancini said afterwards:

I don’t understand this. The video was on Monday, and Monday was a day off. Some players can do what they want, but I don’t understand why. I told the players my opinion about getting into these situations 10 days ago.

I think this problem is not only for us, it is for many players. For British players, it is part of the culture.

Leaving aside Given’s Irishness he is a player who has grown up in ‘British’ football, who has been part of it for years. And so we have a situation where despite being expressly told by their manager not to get involved in such things, these players ignored that, ignored good sense, ignored the requirements of top level sportsmen, and went on the piss.

This isn’t a criticism of these Man City players – that’s for Mancini and for City fans to take care of – but merely an illustration of how pervasive the drinking culture still is in the English game. And no matter what anyone might say about players being human and needing to let their hair down, it can only ever negatively affect their performances and abilities as footballers.

These guys retire in their early-mid 30s, made up for life, millions in the bank, and they can drink to their hearts content then. Necking from the bottle while being egged on and filmed by students … it’s pretty shameful really.

To be among the best requires dedication, hard work, commitment to a healthy lifestyle and plain old common sense. The City players this week showed everyone why it should be no surprise the Ballon d’Or was free of British players. When nobody bats at eyelid at Rooney, the best English player of his generation, pissing in the streets after late night smoking and drinking sessions then that tells its own story.

They consider the lifestyle more important than the sport itself and they are indulged because it’s considered part and parcel of the game. And that means the award will always go to someone else.

Still, they can always drown their sorrows with a few pints.

Let me just say, with as must neutrality as it’s possible for any football fan to muster, that I’ve been decidedly unimpressed by Man City’s start to the season.  Their performances have been uninspiring, with results to match.  Setting aside the pedestrian irrelevance that is the Europa League, they’ve won just two of their opening five league games, and crashed out of the League Cup at West Brom.  They’ve lost at Sunderland and been held at home to Blackburn.  Their most impressive result was a 3-0 win against a Liverpool side who now sit just two places clear of the relegation zone.

Incredibly, two wins from five is enough to have City currently in the top four, which is as much an indictment of the form of sides like Everton, Villa, and indeed Liverpool as anything else.  They’re currently level on eight points with Spurs, and the pair look set to wage another war over that final Champions League spot.

Unless…

Tomorrow City host league leaders Chelsea, in the first of this season’s fixtures likely to cause them to break sweat.  If City are to make the jump from Champions League contenders to title challengers, they have to win tomorrow.  The time for excuses and ‘bedding in’ has settled.  Everyone knows Mancini’s team now.  It’s got Carlos Tevez on his own upfront and more defensive midfielders than you can shake a very negative stick at.  It’s got Joe Hart in goal and James Milner on the wing and Kolo Toure still clinging on to his spot, aided by the presence of his more-talented brother.  It has, however, got potential.  And now is the time to realise it.  Lose at lunchtime, and they’ll find themselves ten points behind the league leaders.  Already.

Chelsea, meanwhile, will be hoping to keep their remarkable momentum going as they enter a far trickier run of fixtures.  In their next three league games they travel to City and Villa and host Arsenal.  The Gunners, as well as Manchester United, will be looking to pounce on any slip by the Champions.  If Chelsea can pick up three points, however, and it’ll be almost as disheartening for the chasing pack as City.

Man City v Chelsea might just turn out to be one of the most pivotal games of the season.

So far this summer Manchester City have signed Jerome Boateng from Hamburg (£10m), David Silva from Valencia (£24m) and Yaya Toure from Barcelona (£28m).

I’m not sure I believe the stories about Toure’s wages being £220,000 per week. There’s too much difference there between him and the other big names at the club for it to be realistic. If Toure’s getting that then Tevez would want the same, as would Adebayor, Toure Sr, Gareth Barry and new boy Silva. Let’s say he’s only £150,000 a week only (only!).

That’s a total investment in Toure over the duration of his five year contract of £39,000,000 in wages + £28,000,000 transfer fee = £67,000,000. David Silva will cost something similar – and that’s ruling out any wage increases, bonuses, extensions etc. Work it out for the all the signings they’ve made in the last 12 months and for all the signings to come. It’s close a half a billion pound investment in the squad. Maybe more

Earlier in the week City fan Noel Gallagher was quoted in the Mirror about a lunch he had with the club’s bombastic chief executive Garry Cook. Gallagher reportedly said:

I had a big, long lunch with Garry Cook and the revelations you lot are going to hear in the next month are going to blow your mind. Garry was writing out these names on a napkin, about who was going to be in the squad.

Even if there’s a bit of mischief making on Gallagher’s part I don’t think it’s a long shot to suggest City haven’t stopped spending. Why would they? They have most of the money in the world. Yet if you were a youth player at the club how would you be feeling? Maybe you’ve got good coaches and top class facilities now but is there an obvious progression into the first team?

Roberto Mancini says:

We are absolutely committed to the Academy and to developing our own talent. It is important that they know there is a path to the first team for them.

Fine words but is there any way through for them? Look at those who have come through the youth system in the current squad. Nedum Onuoha plays … sometimes, Shaun Wright-Phillips makes substitute cameos and really has no future, Stephen Ireland found himself crowded out by expensive purchases last season and it’s not looking any better this time around, while the careers of Micah Richards and Michael Johnson continue to flounder. And these players made their way to the first team before the big, big money arrived.

Those are the examples that the youngsters at Man City are looking at now and they must be thinking ‘if those guys can’t get into the team how on earth am I going to do it?’.

As long as City have the Abu-Dhabi billions there’s no incentive for them to invest properly in youth. They can buy ready made players as and when they choose. They can talk as much as they like about career progression but it’s hard to see youth get a chance when so much has been spent on the first team. They’ve already spent £62m this summer and with that kind of money comes the expectation of trophies. Young, inexperienced kids aren’t going to get much a look in when the stakes are so high.

For the academy players at Eastlands the best they can hope for is a decent education and to find themselves a club where they might get a chance to play. City will have to hope another Ryan Giggs doesn’t fall through the net.

And if there are some young players hoping Mancini is true to his word they should stop and think about how many players have emerged from Chelsea’s academy since Roman Abramovich took over.