Tom Lappin: Erratic Robinho a microcosm of the dilemmas facing Mancini

Published on Friday 30 July 2010 18:50

It's a problem that will elicit little sympathy from the rest of the Premier League managers. Roberto Mancini has to decide what to do with one of the brightest forwards from the World Cup, a Brazilian who, on song, is one of the world's most mesmerising footballers.

The trouble is that Robinho's moments of song in Manchester tended to be restricted to after-hours parties at his rented mansion, to the extent that he had to move out after neighbours complained about the noise. The general realisation that free-spirit samba star Robinho and the damply censorious denizens of north-west England were never going to get on contributed to the Brazilian returning home to thrive with Santos.

Sadly Santos reside on the saner plane of world football where clubs don't pay upwards of 30 million for the privilege of paying a footballer 160,000 a week. Robinho is coming back, and City are left with a white elephant unhappier than Dumbo in act one of the Disney flick. Their dilemma is a microcosm of the club's broader identity crisis.

When the Abu Dhabi potentates bought Manchester City, the signing of Robinho for 32m was supposed to be the equivalent of establishing a keystone tenant. The world's greatest footballers were going to take notice and exclaim, well if it's good enough for Robi, it's good enough for me.

It transpired that even the more credulous and avaricious representatives of one of the world's least discriminating professions weren't inclined to adopt Robinho as a role model. The great and good failed to follow Robinho's skipping jog down the yellow-brick road to the City of Manchester stadium. The fair-to-middling likes of Gareth Barry and Joleon Lescott probably weren't quite what the Abu Dhabi group had in mind. Roberto Mancini's reputation and restraint established a modicum of sense last season, but he is finding it harder to maintain control in a summer when the owners want to reassert their grandiose ambitions with more posturing in the transfer market.

Mancini has to strike a difficult balance between judicious signings that will strengthen his squad, and the marquee names that will grab the headlines. In the former category was the astute securing of the signature of the German defender Jerome Boateng (although his Ghanaian brother Kevin had a more spectacular World Cup).

In the forward line, the acquisitions are riskier. He has spent 25m on David Silva, a star at Valencia but edged out of the Spain eleven that won the World Cup. Mario Balotelli may join for a similar sum.He would be a conspicuous gamble, given a temperament that ruled him out of Jose Mourinho's Internazionale plans for much of last season, and the indifferent history of Italian stars in England (Gianfranco Zola being the exception that proves the rule).

Mancini's biggest problem though remains finding a nucleus for his side. His overblown squad looks like a disparate bunch of individuals in search of a leader. Compare this with the way Mourinho managed Roman Abramovich's ambitions at Chelsea. In John Terry and Frank Lampard (however risible those names might sound in the aftermath of the World Cup), Mourinho had week-in, week-out performers in the blue shirt who exemplified the club's London identity and provided leadership.

Mancini has no such embodiments of the City brand. Players like Nedum Onuoha, Micah Richards and Stephen Ireland who seemed to represent a bright future for the club, before City came into riches beyond their dreams, are now seen as dispensible, easily-replaced with expensive new acquisitions. This is a mistake, removing any sense of continuity or progression from the squad. It sends out the message that players don't come to City to improve, they come to cash in.

It is a pattern that will not endear the club to players like Emmanuel Adebayor and Carlos Tevez, who were excellent for Mancini, but will be unimpressed at seeing their team in a constant state of flux.

Mancini needs to find the spine of his team, and is running out of time. In goal, Shay Given is the incumbent, which leaves Mancini perplexed about what to do with Joe Hart. Hart is ostensibly the England number one, given that David James is in his dotage and Hart the only candidate who hasn't committed a hideous error in an England jersey. He won't be happy warming the City bench.

Kolo Toure is Mancini's senior centre-half, but he hasn't moulded a City back-four in his image. The holding midfielders Barry and Nigel De Jong excelled in the league last season, but will carry hangovers from a World Cup that left them with indelible images: of Barry labouring in slow-motion in the wake of Mesut Ozil; of De Jong's studs planted into Xabi Alonso's ribcage.

Tevez will be a key player. He has already had a difference of opinion with Mancini over the training schedule, and there are simmering rumours of his possible departure. City can't afford to lose a player who has mastered the Premier League. He is a tireless workhorse, a creator and scorer of goals and a player with the personality and reputation to influence those around him. His energetic attitude is in marked contrast to Robinho's. If Tevez is ready to throw his weight behind City's cause, Mancini may have the beginnings of a team ethic.

Otherwise City may spend another year frantically scurrying across the continents with their shopping-list, their cash attracting only the most mercenary, least committed members of the world's talent pool.