da aviator aposta：
da apostebet： Roberto Mancini and Carlo Ancelotti treated (probably the wrong word) us to our very own rendition of Serie A in a Manchester stadium this weekend. Having now swapped the Milanese derby for the meeting of the Premier League billionaires, the former teammates from the Azzurri played out their cagey affair in typical catenaccio style.
So far this season, Mancini’s men have already come up against Spurs away, and both Liverpool and Chelsea at home. Seven points from those three games is a return that fans and players alike must be pleased with. The trio of Yaya Toure, Nigel De Jong (a pitbull of a player who is fast becoming one of my favourites) and Gareth Barry have cemented themselves as Mancini’s midfield three. Tevez is clearly his main striker, especially while Balotelli is sidelined, and the wide positions must now be divvied up between Milner, David Silva, Johnson and Wright-Phillips (I know my choice, and safe to say it wouldn’t include SWP who appears as though he is constantly in a state of falling over).
Those central three will never contribute a massive amount of goals, even with Toure’s box–to-box running – which looks exactly like a Pro Evo player, or is that my imagination? – and so the emphasis is ordinarily on keeping opponents out, before trying to break them down. While the first half of Saturday’s encounter did include a lot of final balls into a penalty devoid of City players, Mancini was proved correct in his methods of dealing with Chelsea’s rampant start to the season.
One cannot criticise Mancini for playing such a solid team against the plundering Champions, but let’s not pretend it is something he has done in just this one game; this is his innate approach to winning football games. It is too simplistic to call Toure, De Jong and Barry all defensive midfielders, they offer different qualities, but most teams operating the same system have a Gerrard/Lampard/Sneijder type player to offer the potent attacking threat that none of City’s threesome exert.
With the system and style of play adopted by this current City side, they will lose few games. In the league they have conceded just the two goals: a penalty and an uncharacteristic error from Joe Hart. No team has yet to cut them open, and even Chelsea were kept relatively quiet. Having averaged over four goals a game (opposition considered), Chelsea gave Joe Hart very little to do.
City fans may not be inundated with a glut of goals, but it is a price that any fan will be willing to pay for success, and a place at Europe’s top table. In the same way that Chelsea fans could deal with the controlled discipline of Mourinho’s Chelsea, because it brought them titles, Mancini’s pragmatism should reap a healthy set of results. Up next for City is Gigi Del Neri’s Juventus who have been nothing short of awful so far this term; the same passive-aggressive approach should be too much for the Old Lady. And after league ties against Newcastle (H) and Blackpool (A) comes the visit of Arsenal.
Under more pressure than any other manager in the league, Mancini is gradually passing his tests. Nothing is perfect, and there are still improvements that can be made at Eastlands, but Mancini is defining a style that will stand him in good stead. If City can build up a reputation as a tough team to beat, with a miserly unit that gives away little opportunity, they will banish any perception of overpaid egos, and a momentum will gather. It has been a solid start so far, and Mancini is clear in what he wants to achieve, but more importantly, in how he wants to go about it.
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