MADCINI
Roberto went to war with everyone...players,back-up staff, physios, the kitman, canteen workers, the car park lads - he probably swung a few punches at his own reflection in the mirror for looking at him a bit funny!
FOR the love of me, I couldn’t work Roberto Mancini out.
We heard that when he was sacked by Inter Milan in 2008, the entire squad had a massive night out to celebrate.
By the time I left Manchester City in July 2011, I was ready to throw a party myself.
Surely, the first and most important job a manager has is to get the most out of those around him.
Whether you rate a player or not, if he’s on your books surely you want the best for him, the best from him and you want your club to move forward.
Otherwise, why bother wasting everybody’s time even being there?
Roberto Mancini saw the world differently to Shay Given, that’s for sure.
He fell out with everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. The players, the back-up staff, the physios, the kitman, the press officers, the canteen workers, the car park lads, the lot. He probably even swung a punch or two at his own reflection for looking at him funny.
Every morning, he’d sit on an exercise bike and the physio would come to him to report what condition the squad was in. That was the start of World War Three every day.
The physios would deliver a standard list of who was and wasn’t fit and Mancini would erupt in anger, accusing them of shielding fit players or not working hard enough to get injured players back.
Tell me, how does that get the best out of people? Life is not meant to be that difficult.
The maddest thing was, after causing chaos with everybody in the week, I’d then go off to St Pius X Church in Alderley Edge on a Sunday morning and he’d be in there, as devout a Roman Catholic as could be!
After Mark Hughes was sacked, the first meeting with Mancini came at Carrington with Garry Cook and also a translator. He spoke really scratchy English and was reading from a piece of paper. “I’m ’ere... to ’elp... Manchester Citee...” and we knew it was going to be tough from then on. We won our first four matches under Mancini and I kept a clean sheet in three of them so maybe his introduction to the club did strengthen us up a bit at the back. And, don’t get me wrong, he won the Premier League for City but I just don’t think he needed to be so volatile.
At most clubs I’ve been at, you do a bit of team shape on a Thursday to lead into the weekend and you play 11v11.
The two teams would be the rough starting XI v the ‘Custard Pies’ who were on the bench. But at City it would just be the starting XI against nobody. Ghosts. Nothing.
I’d roll the ball out to the right-back, he’d pass it back. I’d pass it to the centre-half, and he’d pass it back. I’d kick to Craig Bellamy or Stephen Ireland and he’d dribble, at walking speed, towards their goal. Then they passed it to Carlos Tevez or whoever and he’d have to score.
Into an empty net. F***ing hell, even I’d score a hatful in those circumstances.
It was weird because it wasn’t done at any great pace or intensity so I couldn’t work out the point of it.
Last time I checked, when you kicked off on a Saturday you had 11 men in front of you, but still we did it every week.
After dislocating my shoulder against Arsenal I had to rehab. But in the summer Joe Hart came back from Birmingham, it was clear he was Mancini’s No.1.
I can’t give you a straight reason as to what I’d done to justify that. All of a sudden I was on Mancini’s s**t-list and I couldn’t get off it.
In December 2009 he’d told the press I was, “One of the best five goalkeepers in the world”. I’d gone from the top five to top f*** all.
I loved the rest of the staff and my team-mates at City.
It was the man who matters most who I cared for the least – and it was clear that the feeling was mutual.