Sir Alex Ferguson versus Roberto Mancini is a contest of experience versus youth. City's Italian coach has been here before, in Italy, but has not sampled the unique pressure of duking it out with English football’s greatest club manager in spring’s brighter light.
In the other dugout here, Roberto Di Matteo managed to leave out Didier Drogba and upset Fernando Torres at the same time by taking him off midway through the second half. This is the win-double for Chelseamanagers hoping to lose their jobs. Mancini, too, has grappled with the sort of political issues Ferguson is immune from by virtue of his huge power base – but with this vital 2-1 victory City’s leader can say he is making the right calls.
Starting with Mario Balotelli is the default gamble of Mancini’s time in the sky-blue half of Manchester. Red cards or extreme detachment can follow. This time Balotelli brought ineffectiveness and Mancini took him off at half-time.
“He was not good,” the manager said. But the point was that he put it right quickly, and can now face the last nine games with a clear hierarchy among his forwards. An all-Argentine strike force of Sergio Agüero and Carlos Tévez looks
