Serrano & TB - First Hurdle...

[eaststand]

... And they've let the club and more importantly the fans down at the first hurdle. I was more excited than most when they were brought on but this last 3 days has been utterly, atrociously amateurish.

We can do nothing about them want to replace Mancini, however, If Mancini is to go, do it right, do it with respect for the man and do it without damaging the club. If Mancini isn't to go, why is there no statement released? Both utterly amateurish and completely unacceptable for out great club.

They destroyed an almost certain 3rd trophy in 3 years. The club is bigger than anything else, new managers, old managers, perspective managers. The most important thing should have been the thing that was most important to Mancini waking on Saturday - winning that cup. Instead they've created a set of circumstances that made a reported 47,000 city fans have to fork out an average spend of £300 to go and watch that utter shite. Utter shite that wasn't the managers fault and was only marginally the players fault.

Ferran Serrano, Txiki Bigesteran. Regardless of whether Pellegrini will be the right man, you've let our fans down, you've tarnished the name of our club and this is not acceptable behaviour. The fact that 36 hours later the fans find themselves still with no statement official statement from the club is reprehensible.

With regards to Kahldoon, since taking over the club he's made a point of staying close to the fans, keeping us in the know of important things, understood what the club means to us. Up until now he has been faultless and although I can appreciate that they've brought Serrano and Begisteran in to deal with these very situations, surely he has seen this, seen how unacceptable the behaviour of these two have been and he gets some official release from the club that the fans not only deserve but shouldn't have to ask for.

Overall City, NOT GOOD. Let me warn you, you're on thin ice with the fans that turn out week in week out, the fans that do not think twice about shelling out fortunes to follow this club. I suggest you think VERY carefully when setting next seasons season ticket prices.

[trautmansdropkick]

I feel that this is a particularly emotional outburst on the back of he Wembley defeat. Having been told, some time ago by 'someone in the know' it is obvious that Mancini did less than minimal work with regards to anything outside of the first team squad and that the owners had virtually decided very early this year that Mancini was going at the end of the season - it is being said that he'd never even bothered to watch EDS or under 21 games, he'd never been to see the developing Etihad Campus project and that his involvement with both the City in the Community and MCFC Ladies football team projects was minimal. to say the least.
I have just heard an interview with a senior Spanish Sports Journalist who says that Perregrini is extremely excited about he City 'project' with it's aim to develop up to 90% of our first team through our Academy and overseeing the fact that ALL of our teams, from under 9's all the way through the EDS, MCFC Ladies, New York City and the First team, play the same style of true FOOTBALL. Which, according to my imformants, is something that did not interest Mancini at all.

[eaststand]

You're always very pro-City and credit to you for that but i think on this occasion you can't defend the club and i stand completely by what i said. The whole situation was very, very poorly managed. Whether Mancini should have gone, whether Pellegrini is the right man or not is all irrelevant to me because these are things that are totally opinion based. But this is the second time in the Mansour era that we have replaced a manager and on both occasions we've have done it astonishingly poorly in terms of execution, timing and general appreciation for the dignity and self respect of these managers. Managers are very proud people, they have to be to do what they do and publicly, almost but not quite, humiliating them is not the way it's done. You can't just shake your head and go 'this is modern day football' because if we really want 'man managers' at the club then how the hell are we to sell this apparent new 'first team, reserves, youth are all a family' ethos if we continue to treat managers in such a way when we're wanting to make a change?!

First time round we had a manager totally unaware that he was to be sacked, people in the stands knew before him and his replacement was sat mere feet away. This time round we've had a manager, on the eve of what turned out to be the biggest game of the season, being undermined by very very poor (create a phrase) CEO-manship. No, the right way to go about it was to sit Mancini down and say "listen, we completely respect what you have done for this football club but as of next season we'd like to take things in a different direction with a new manager. We hope you will stay on until the end of the season and close out the final chapter of what has been a wonderful and transformative era in this clubs recent history, which you have orchestrated.". There was no reasoning for not showing the man the respect he fully deserves for what he's done for our club. Would he have told them to stick their job... No because he wouldn't get any of the sizable compensation packet he was due. Would it have effected performances...? Could they have actually been any worse? No, there is, in my mind, no defense or logic behind their very amateurish execution in a decision which i am sure they've done with every intention of doing what we will best for the playing aspect of the club in the immediate future.

But, the club is about more than the players, at all levels, it's about the fans and their amateurish execution of this part of their designs for the clubs let the fans down. I was devastated that it didn't get down to loyalty points to get a ticket (another cup run and I only get to see the run upto the semi-final live, gutting) but in the end what a let off. You cannot say that that lackluster, sloppy, unprofessional and down right shite performance had nothing to do with the way things where handled?

If you want to have a meeting in secret, you tell the minimum amount of people necessary and you do it. 99 times out of a 100 it ends up remaining secret. You don't go for a dinner in an up market restaurant in Spain to meet the agent of the manager you're sounding out, you don't do it when the man in charge still clearly believes he'll be the manager next season, stating so in his post match interview and you do not sit there and let that PR disaster unfold like it did and go almost 5 days without a fucking whipser of an official statement. I was angry them and i'm angry now and i hope that a cock-up of such monumental proportions doesn't happen again.

In the end, 40,000+ City fans ended up paying for it, to the tune of about £300 a fan and to watch a group of players so disillusioned by the timing of the news that they we're well beaten by a team of players who will now grace the championship, all whilst getting piss-wet-through (isn't that always the case). It's indefensible.

As for Mancini, it's ironic that some of the reasoning in the statement echos a couple of the 'i wish he'd be more..' reservations I've put up on here. But like I've said it's not the necessarily the decision I'm not happy with - I would've, and i think most City fans would've, given him another year - it has been the execution of it.