The last week has seen the continuation of José Mourinho’s mind games with Wayne Rooney, Manchester United step up their pursuit of Cesc Fabregas and Arséne Wenger trying to establish Arsenal’s might in the transfer market with an audacious bid for Luis Suárez. With all this going on, and of the course, the birth of the royal baby (urgh!- Ed.), one could be forgiven for not noticing Manuel Pellegrini, lurking in the shadows quietly going about his job at Manchester City.
Pellegrini has already spent nearly £100 million this summer, yet Moyes and Mourinho continue to hog the headlines with their respective bids for Fabregas and Rooney whilst Pellegrini has been busy strengthening his squad with Stefan Jovetić and Álvaro Negredo. All this could well work in City and Pellegrini’s favour come the end of the season, and here’s why:
Mourinho’s first tenure as Chelsea manager indicated the progress of the club under the Roman Abramovich era and yielded great successes as the West Londoners looked to de-throne Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United. Mourinho was so successful in fact, that Abramovich, a man who holds a grudge, re-instated the Portuguese manager this summer after reportedly falling out with him in 2007 prior to Mourinho’s dismissal.
Abramovich is a man who sacked his manager just months after winning European football’s most coveted prize and Chelsea are a club who demand success. The players and fans have become accustomed to it during the Abramovich era and this season the expectations will be larger than the last.
The pressure will certainly be greater on Mourinho to deliver this time around; when he arrived from Porto in 2004, few would have predicted his phenomenal success, but now the Chelsea faithful are more expectant than ever and Abramovich is more demanding than ever. I don’t mean to say that he is not capable of meeting these expectations; we all know what the Special One is capable of. However, the pressure of expectation can affect even the most talented of us, as Mourinho’s unconvincing reign at the helm of Real Madrid surely indicates.
If Chelsea fans have come to expect success from their team, then Manchester United fans demand success from their own. United’s accomplishments under Sir Alex don’t need repeating. The pressure on Moyes must be almost unbearable for the Scot. He has been charged with replacing the most successful football manager of all time without having ever won a trophy in professional football himself (apart from the League 2 title with Preston North End), which is a somewhat daunting task to put it lightly.
At some point during the season, United will have a wobble, and then we will all see how Moyes will cope. His failure to land a major signing (accurate as I am writing) and the on-going Rooney saga will be keeping Moyes awake at night. If he has a trophy-less first season at Old Trafford, it could be curtains for him, 26 and a half years earlier into his career than his predecessor.
Whilst many of us have already accepted the battle for the Premier League title may be a three horse race, this does not alleviate any pressure from Arsenal. The North London club’s demise since Wenger’s 2004 Invincibles saw them drop to fourth place last season, and they were made to fight bitter rivals Tottenham tooth and nail for it.
Some scoffed at the manner in which the once mighty Arsenal celebrated fourth place; they rejoiced as if they had won the Champions League on Tyneside in May. These celebrations are more out of relief than anything else; Arséne Wenger’s wrinkled brow resembles that of a man who has spent his life worrying, even before the trials and tribulations of the transfer market and pre-season preparations take their toll on him again. This is a perfect indicator of the pressure which is now on them to keep ahead of Spurs.
Whilst Mourinho, Moyes and Wenger have a lot of pressure on them, Pellegrini does not. In fact, the two things he does have rather a lot of, are time and money. After the fans’ reaction to Roberto Mancini’s sacking a year to the day after snatching the Premier League crown from bitter rivals United, City’s hierarchy are keen not to become the next Chelsea in terms of managerial policies.
They are looking to instil some longevity at the club and build the basis for the success the way United did with Sir Alex Ferguson. They look to have found their man in Pellegrini, which means he will have years rather than months to build a team and accomplish success, unlike Mourinho or Moyes, who will each be considered a failure if they don’t lead their team to the Premier League title in their inaugural season.
City’s owners certainly aren’t short of a few quid and Pellegrini has been busy, already adding Fernandinho, Jesús Navas along with Negredo and Jovetić to his squad. Fans can expect more summer signings from the Chilean, and expect their team to be up there or thereabouts come the end of the season.