Former Premier League winning manager Roberto Mancini has made some interesting comments about the perception of Jurgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino in Italy.
The Italian, a former boss of Manchester City, reckons there’d have been stupidly hyperbolic reactions to the pair not winning trophies at their clubs if they were in Serie A – despite the bosses building Liverpool and Spurs respectively into top sides.
Of course, both still have a chance to collect arguably the two biggest trophies in club football this season. Spurs are in the Champions League semis and only 1-0 down to Ajax, while Liverpool are one point behind City in the Premier League, although admittedly require a miracle in Europe to get past Barca and reach the final.
“We exaggerate things in Italy,” Mancini told Tutti Convocati:
“Let’s take this example: Pochettino has been at Tottenham for five years, he has a very good team.
“Tottenham have spent a lot and, in five years, still haven’t won anything. In Italy, they’d have already killed the poor man.
“Instead he’s still there, trying to improve the team every year so they can win things.
“The Champions League isn’t so simple, otherwise we’d have won it so many times. It’s never easy to win.
“Klopp is another, he has been at Liverpool for three years but risks not winning anything, despite them having an exciting season.”
Liverpool not winning anything this season will feel grossly unfair, but it’s football. If City win their remaining two games, they’ll finish on 98 points – which means they’ll have racked up 198 over two seasons – which is bordering on the ridiculous.
Never before has an English football team won so many matches, and we could finish one point behind.
In Europe, we came up against an inspired Lionel Messi, the greatest player to ever grace a football field.
Whatever happens in the following weeks, providing we keep hold of our superb spine, we’ll go again next season. It’s not final, like it was in 2013/14.
There’s no rush. We’ll keep believing.
And anyway, Brendan Rodgers is sorting us out on Monday night – so none of this really matters!