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When Mancini looks back on his City career one date will be forever ringed on his calendar. It is a date that brought an unwelcome symmetry to his time at Etihad Stadium. It was on May 13 2012 that the Italian enjoyed his finest moment when Sergio Aguero scored 100 seconds from the end of the season against QPR to give City their first title in 44 years.
And it was on the unhappiest of anniversaries, one year later, that Mancini’s slow march towards the exit door was confirmed.
If ever there was an example of how swiftly the scenery can shift in the modern English Premier League it is the dismissal of a manager just 12 months after he delivered the greatest moment in City’s modern history.
For all the fine words and expressions of admiration for Mancini contained in the farewell statement, he has gone simply because City believe results this season, and circumstances surrounding them, deliver proof that he was not up to the job of taking this fiercely-ambitious club where they want to go.
There will be sympathy for Mancini, especially from City fans who supported him so vociferously throughout the FA Cup final defeat by Wigan at Wembley, as they will rightly remember him as the manager who — albeit briefly — freed them from the years of living in Manchester United’s shadow.
City’s statement, made when it became obvious Mancini was a lame duck after speculation that he was about to be sacked and replaced by Malaga’s Manuel Pellegrini went unchecked, carried a ruthless tone.
It is clear the club’s Abu Dhabi owners expected a more robust title defence rather than the concession to United. They certainly expected a more distinguished Champions League campaign than the horror show which saw them fail to win any of their six games, albeit in a group containing Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Ajax.
The only target he hit to the satisfaction of those in Abu Dhabi was Champions League qualification and that, combined with other factors, was not enough to save Mancini.
Mancini’s confrontational style, with public criticism aimed at goalkeeper Joe Hart, among others, is neither here nor there if he can use a Premier League title as his shield, but it is another matter in a season dotted with the sort of limp efforts such at that served up in the cup final defeat against Wigan.
Talk of tensions behind the scenes was rife and at times City have looked a team lacking spirit — yet when they won so impressively at Manchester United in April it was a vivid reminder of why they were the champions.
There was also a shift in emphasis at City that did not work in Mancini’s favour. Chief executive Ferran Soriano and sporting director Txiki Begiristain arrived to bring their Barcelona experience to bear, to cast some Catalan colours on the Etihad canvas.
Having won the Premier League, the Champions League will have been fixed in the mind’s eye of owner Sheikh Mansour and chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak. City’s lamentable group phase, coupled with Mancini’s unimpressive record in the competition with Inter Milan, will have hardened the belief that someone else was needed for this job.
Pellegrini has a decent record in the competition — he took unfashionable Villarreal to the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2006 — where they lost to Arsenal — before the Gunners also knocked them out in the last eight a year later.
His one season in the Champions League with Real Madrid saw a defeat in the last 16 at the hands of Lyon, but he was only denied from taking Malaga to the last four this season by Borussia Dortmund’s remarkable fightback which saw them score twice in stoppage-time.
Sadly for City and Mancini, so aware of the rather undignified departure of his successor Mark Hughes in 2009, things were allowed to get messy and a few items of dirty laundry were aired in public. This surfaced in a tense briefing in Wembley’s media theatre on Saturday when Mancini effectively, and unnecessarily, named and shamed the club’s communications department for failing to kill off speculation about Pellegrini. He now knows why this was impossible. — BBC Sport.
Online Reporter