Roberto Mancini will bring winning football to Man City, says Andy Gray, but it may take some time yet.
'Sheikh would be crazy to axe Mancini - even if City do lose to Fulham'
Mark Hughes has a huge personal incentive to beat Manchester City on Sunday and I'm sure he'd love to pull on his boots and get stuck in if he could!
It's almost a year since he was sacked by the club - a decision based as much on business reasons as the fact that he was drawing too many games.
He's having a similar experience in terms of results as boss of Fulham, actually, all be it without anything like the same money behind him!
He's made them very difficult to beat but they haven't won enough games and I think they will struggle to pick up three points once again this week because City, after two goalless home draws, will push much harder for the win than they have done in recent weeks.
Winning
If City don't win they will have fewer points after 14 games under Mancini than they did at the same stage of last season under Hughes, but Sheikh Mansour would be crazy to think about replacing him any time soon.
When someone like the Sheikh buys a company, let alone a football club, for hundreds of millions it's only natural that he wants his own man in charge. If Mark had won more games then City might have stuck with him but realistically he was always under pressure from day one for the simple fact that he was not the Sheikh's choice.
Mancini was and, as things stand, I don't see any reason why the Sheikh should change his mind. City are in and around the top four, which is exactly where they'd like to finish this season, and it's pretty clear that the players are still getting to know each other and Mancini's methods.
It's taking longer than it should because Mancini has had problems with player availability, in particular Mario Balotelli who is suspended for this weekend's game.
I'm sure the owner would like City's football to be more entertaining but I think he also recognises that Mancini is capable of delivering winning football in the longer term.
After all he's won three Serie A titles, which shows he can cope with the pressure, and the process of making this squad his and weeding out the players he doesn't want isn't yet complete.
Steady
As things stand City have scored fewer goals than Blackpool, West Brom and Newcastle - the three sides promoted last season - which is a reflection on his tactics and the options available to him.
He has been too negative at times but made a conscious effort to be more positive against Birmingham last week by playing Nigel de Jong and Yaya Toure, but not Gareth Barry.
Although City didn't score they did have 20-odd shots and were a little unlucky not to win. Every team has games like that.
Gareth does a steady job but he's not flamboyant in any way, which is why the fans were understandably upset when he came on for Carlos Tevez in the closing stages against Birmingham.
He is not as influential as he was at Villa because of the quality of the players around him - he's a smaller fish in a bigger pond - but he does get about and do what's required.
That approach is fine when you are playing against Man Utd or Chelsea, where a point is not such a bad result. But when City play the Fulhams of this league they must try to win the match - that has to be their first thought rather than 'how do we not lose it?'
I think Mancini is stuck between the Italian mentality of not losing the game and the British mentality of how you go about winning it straight from the start.
He hasn't quite got the balance right but I'm sure he will because in David Platt and Brian Kidd he has got two people alongside him who know exactly what this league is all about; they know what it takes to win it.
It's fine to have the mentality of 'let's not ship goals' but the secret is to shut up shop and marry that with scoring, something Chelsea have been the masters of over the last couple of seasons.
Pressure
Fulham have scored just once in three games this month and while Clint Dempsey has done quite well as a make-shift front-man that stat goes to show how big a blow it was for them to lose Bobby Zamora just as he'd broken into the England side.
As hard as Andy Johnson works he's not a prolific goal-scorer at this level and is still short of match fitness. Fulham need goals from other areas of the pitch so it's up to the likes of Danny Murphy and Simon Davies to chip in with a few more goals which would help to ease the pressure up front.
Mark has hinted a couple of times that he would be interested in signing Roque Santa Cruz from his former club if he was available at a reasonable price.
Mark knows Roque better than most from their days at Blackburn and he might respond to a move to Fulham, where there would be less pressure on him.
Of course it depends what they could get him in for but if the price was right it would definitely be money well spent, something which these days is more important than ever.
