“And when I say everyone, I mean everyone.”
Shay Given has offered some insight into life at Manchester City under former manager Roberto Mancini. According to Given, the Italian fell out with “everyone” at the club.
The former Inter Milan manager was City boss between December 2009 and May 2013 and his reign was very eventful. Mancini guided the club into the Champions League and to an FA Cup final victory over Stoke City.
He was manager when the club won their first Premier League title in dramatic circumstances in 2012. Sergio Aguero’s goal, the final kick of the season against Queens Park Rangers, denied Manchester United the title on goal difference and ensured Mancini’s status as a club legend amongst City fans.
However, it sounds as though Mancini’s relationship with his squad, and staff at the club, wasn’t as harmonious. According to Given, who played for City between 2009 and 2011, the Italian was a very difficult person to work with, and that he managed to get on the wrong side of “everyone” at the club.
“He fell out with everyone,” Given says in his new autobiography, which has been serialised in The Daily Mirror.
“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.”
The former Ireland and Newcastle goalkeeper, who lost his starting place at City to Joe Hart in 2010, says that Mancini was a tough taskmaster, that could be angered by the slightest thing, and he wasn’t afraid to let people know about it.
“Every single 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 he would erupt in anger, accusing them of shielding fit players or not working hard enough to get injured players back.”
Given concedes that Mancini did improve City defensively, but he found some of his methods perplexing. He claims that Mancini worked on team shape by instructing the starting XI to slowly pass the ball to each other in training, rather than stage a practice match between the first XI and the substitutes, as was the norm at other clubs Given played for.
“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 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.”
Given’s autobiography is released later this week. The 41-year-old played in the Premier League for almost 20 years, but has been without a club since leaving Stoke City at the end of last season. Mancini is currently manager of Zenit Saint Petersburg in Russia. He was sacked by City after losing the FA Cup final to Wigan in 2013.
