Come next season, will Roberto Mancini still be the manager of the world’s biggest spending football club of recent years?
If Manchester City’s owners in Abu Dhabi decide the time has come to move on from Mancini nobody could accuse them of lacking patience or support.
But is Sheikh Mansour among those now taking the view that while Mancini is undoubtedly a good manager, he’s not proving to be a great one?
Question; which international defender with over 100 caps had to start their career washing the underwear of Denis Bergkamp and his Arsenal team mates?
Surprise surprise it wasn’t a man. England’s Casey Stoney was a senior player for Arsenal when she had to do laundry to supplement her income.
That was in 1999 so how far have women in football come since then? Well let’s say there’s still work to do on the field –
The darkest hour comes before the dawn. It’s difficult to think of a club whose prospects look brighter than Bayern Munich.
May 20 last year; Munich airport. Hundreds of supporters, most but not all German, packed into the club shop. Bayern shirts everywhere, in bags and on backs. Not what i was expecting after events of May 19. But hiding or sulking doesn’t seem to be in the DNA here.
Bayern somehow threw away their chances to win their home Champions league final,
“I don’t understand Twitter. I don’t know why anyone should get involved with it. We have given instructions to the players that nobody should tweet about Manchester United. We have to.”
Those were the words of Alex Ferguson in August last year, after an indiscretion by Rio Ferdinand on Twitter. He hadn’t even sent the tweet that insulted Ashley Cole, but had re-tweeted it with a laugh.
And so I am puzzled –
It has been a move so sharp, opportunistic and clinical any of the great strikers would have been proud of it.
Sepp Blatter moving into the space ahead of UEFA and putting himself and FIFA at the forefront of the fight against racism.
A set of apparently tough proposals from FIFA’s Strategic Committee are to be put in front of the Executive Committee late in March, and conceivably ratified by FIFA Congress in May.
Is Lionel Messi fitter than other footballers, as well as being a better player? The four-time Ballon D’Or winner played 69 high level games in 2012 scoring a record 91 goals and didn’t appear to be tired for a single minute.
But those ‘unfortunate’ enough to earn their living playing in the English Premier League apparently suffered terribly over the Christmas and New Year period.