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Spark Out

Published by Ian John on December 20, 2009

Yesterdays Premier League action saw the headlines of Pompey’s defeat of Liverpool and Fulham’s 3-0 demolition of Manchester United eclipsed by events at Eastlands where Manchester City and Sunderland fought out a dramatic 4-3 win for the home side played against the backdrop of Manchester City boss Mark Hughes being axed.

It was a surreal situation for the Welshman. Having lost the fewest games in the Premier League, indeed ANY league in England, Hughes has paid the penalty for drawing too many games with seven wins, eight draws and just two defeats deemed not a good enough performance from a manager who has spent around £250m since his wealthy paymasters took over at the club. The end of the game yesterday saw Hughes, clearly upset at the decision, wave farewell to the City faithful amidst rumours that Roberto Mancini was already at the City ground waiting to fill his shoes the moment his sacking became official, which it did just a couple of hours after the game.

The former Inter manager has been awarded a three and a half year contract and will have total control at the club. All Hughes entire backroom staff have been axed along with the manager, to enable Mancini to bring in his own men as he seeks to push City into the Premiership top four.

The question is, is Hughes unlucky to get the sack? Certainly two defeats, one an unlucky 4-3 loss at bitter rivals United isn’t too bad a showing in the Premier League this season. Manchester United have lost five games, but it seems the decision to replace Hughes must have been taken after their 3-0 midweek loss to Tottenham.

On the one hand that Hughes has got City into their best position in many years, assembled a fine squad and has a team which can now, realistically, challenge the top sides is testament to his abilities, but it has to be weighed up with the amount of money he has spent in order to achieve that.

A good comparison is when Jose Mourinho took over at Chelsea and Roman Abramovic funded a huge spending spree. The following season Chelsea were challenging at the top of the table for the title. As solid as City have been this season, they are nowhere near the top two at present and it is this where Hughes has been judged as failing.

The timing also seems crucial here. With half the season still left, Mancini will now be expected to pilot City into or at least towards, the top four. The Italian will no doubt want to make changes to the squad in January, as well as bringing in his own staff, but will he have any greater success that Hughes? Was Hughes given a fair amount of time to produce a team capable of challenging for the top honours?

The truthful answer is, I don’t know. Hughes is being judged against very strict criteria because of the money invested in players. You can argue he did well considering that this was a newly put together team. You can equally argue that compared to the investment, he has disappointed greatly and that City should be challenging Chelsea at the top with Manchester United. It’s not difficult to see where the City board’s feelings lie here.

So Sparky is out and Mancini is in. No doubt City fans will see more players leaving and arriving in January as Mancini moulds his team. No doubt it will cost the City board a fortune to pay off Hughes and all his backroom staff, but when money is no object that is the price of failure.

I just hope that Roberto Mancini is as aware of that fact as Mark Hughes now is.

Image Courtesy of ***Daddy Lovers89 *** at Flickr.com

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