“In the past six years, Roberto Mancini has won three Serie A titles and the Premier League. In terms of major championships collected during that period, only José Mourinho can equal him. It is a formidable record and, based on that alone, Mancini should be hailed as one of the greats of his generation. Yet the suspicion lingers that he has just been fortunate, the right man in the right place at the right time. He took charge of Internazionale with the other big guns in Serie A weakened by the Italian match-fixing scandal. At Manchester City, he has had unprecedented resources. Look, his accusers say, at his record in the Champions League: in his first two seasons at Inter, Mancini’s side went out in the quarter-finals; in his next two, they went out in the last 16.” Lifes A Pitch

Why did Roberto Mancini make such an obvious tactical error?
“I’m not exactly a Pleat/Cox/Jack like brain when it comes to basic football tactics and formations, but this Tweet has been stuck in my craw since I read this morning. In a good way. As in, I agree with it. Yesterday, I posted a video in which David Pleat explained 4-2-3-1. Beyond the mechanics of the formation itself, Pleat mentioned a Jonathan Wilson truism: that the best tactics fit the team, not the other way around. To paraphrase THE BIBLE, ‘Formations were made for teams, not teams for formations.'” The Score