City say Ciao! To Mark Hughes

So it’s all ended in tears for Mark Hughes as he recieved a suave Italian boot out of the Manchester City bayt, along with his coaching staff. The owner of the Italian boot is Roberto Mancini, who you may remember from such clubs as Inter, Lazio and Sampdoria.

Many feel that Hughes’s sacking is harsh, this being his first full season at the club. On the other hand, Hughes spent vast sums of money this summer, and expectations were lifted as a result. Defensively City have been poor of late, with Toure and Lescott looking like expensive flops compared to the departed Richard Dunne, who is proving one of the players of the season at Aston Villa.

Hughes will doubtless land on his feet with a mammoth payout and a new job soon enough, although he’ll never again be able to say “£24 million for Joleon Lescott? Bargain!”

City’s 4-3 home win over Sunderland today was rendered a sideshow, as speculation was rife before the match that Hughes was on his way regardless of the result. There were even rumours that Hughes had already left, but he did appear in the dugout to go through the motions. It was fairly obvious that he already knew his fate, as he saluted the four corners of Eastlands at the end of the match. None of the coaching staff were allowed to speak to the media after the game, before the club announced the move in a statement about an hour later.

What of Mancini? Having “famously” played a handful of matches for Leicester City in 2001, he took up management with Fiorentina, with whom he won the Coppa Italia, a trick he repeated after moving on to Lazio. When Inter came calling, Mancini was to end the Nerazzurri’s long title drought, albeit thanks to Juventus’ involvement in the Calciopoli scandal. Two further Scudetti, two Coppa Italia and two SuperCoppa Italia successes made him arguably the most successful Inter coach since Helenio Herrera in the ’60s. Less convincing performances in the Champions League led to his departure from the San Siro in May 2008, to be replaced by Jose Mourinho.

Sympathy for Hughes aside, this is a solid appointment for City, particularly with Brian Kidd operating as assistant to provide native knowledge. Mancini’s first task will be to sort out the defensive problems, and who better to achieve that than an Italian?

Five Mancini morsels

• As a player, Mancini partnered Luca Vialli up front as Sampdoria won their only Scudetto in 1989. Other honours with Samp include the Cup Winners’ Cup and four Coppa Italia.
• Mancini played under Sven-Göran Eriksson at Lazio, and completed a Scudetto/Coppa Italia double in 2000.
• In 2001, Mancini made a handful of appearances for Leicester City before returning to Italy for “personal reasons”. It turned out he had been offered the managerial position at Fiorentina.
• Roberto Mancini won 36 caps for the Azzurri, but did not play at either Italia ‘90 (despite being part of the squad) or USA ‘94, the latter after falling out with coach Arrigo Sacchi, an episode that spelt the end of his international career.
• In 227 games in charge of Inter, Mancini’s record was 140 wins, 26 draws and 61 defeats.