Mancini’s bloated squad will doom City to fifth

Jose Mourinho once compared a Premier League squad to a barrel of tomatoes: it only takes one to turn the whole lot rotten. His point, of course, was that a single disillusioned player could unsettle an entire squad – and that a smaller, happier group of players is preferable.

At Chelsea, the Special One put this into practice straight away: in each of his title-winning seasons, only 20 members of his squad ever made five or more appearances in the league. Given how quickly Mourinho managed to eclipse all that Mancini was awarded (sorry, won) at Inter, it seems that the scarf-wearing City boss should listen to his peer when it comes to squad sizes.

Manchester City’s squad, quite simply, is too large, and this will be what stops them breaking into the top four. Right now, they have 24 players who will be expecting to play more often than not*. If we follow Mourinho’s extremely successful blueprint, then City will be faced with four unhappy players, or, four very rotten tomatoes – who, to mix the metaphor, will upset the applecart.

Not convinced? Well, it’s not just Mourinho who subscribes to the smaller-squad philosophy. A quick glance at the most recent successful teams in Europe easily corroborates the argument.

Look no further than Manchester United, Barcelona and Inter Milan. Each of these has won the league and European double over the last three seasons, respectively. This is the level of success that Sheikh Mansour expects. The problem for Man City, however, is that during their European-winning season these teams all played with compact squads. In fact, the three managed an average of 15 players 20 or more times in the league and 19 players 10 or more times in the league.

To emulate this, Mancini would have to ask nine of his senior players to play fewer than half of City’s league games, and five of them to play fewer than 10. You just can’t imagine that these players – big name internationals all – will handle this news too well.

What’s worse, if Mancini’s squad size is the formula for underachievement then the squad make-up should be one hell of a catalyst.

For instance, it’s looking likely that, come the end of the transfer window, City’s out-and-out attackers will be Tevez, Adebayor and Balotelli. These are not the most mellow of players, as history shows: Adebayor cut short the best form of career just to pettily wind up Arsenal fans and stamp on his former colleague’s face. Tevez reacted to being on the bench at Manchester United by baiting both his manager and his board.

Then there’s new boy Balotelli. “Super Mario’s” simple response to not being played enough at Inter Milan was to don an AC Milan strip. Diplomatic this was not. Mancini faces an uphill struggle ensure that none of these clearly volatile players becomes unsettled at Eastlands or the whole of the squad could soon follow.

Talking of City’s prospects and their owners’ ambitions, Sir Alex Ferguson has said that “They [City] have got to be in the top four next year; they have to be.” The thing is, Sir Alex, they don’t have to be. And due to their excessive squad, they almost certainly won’t be.

* Hart, Given, Richards, Zabaletta, Kolarov, Bridge, Kompany, Lescott, Boateng, Kolo Toure, Yaya Toure, Vieira, De Jong, Barry, Silva, Johnson, Wright-Phillips, Robinho, Ireland, Tevez, Bellamy, Adebayor, Santa-Cruz.

(Photo: Getty Images)

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