Mancini's midweek despairs: What is ailing City?

A certain Frank de Boer would have been a rather pleased man on Wednesday night, for more reasons than one. European football’s money-mongering ways had meant that his beloved Ajax, four-time winners of the Champions League and pioneers of the passing game, had been reduced by the media to minnows against a side which was just still testing the waters in the Champions League. Yet, as things unfurled in a true David versus Goliath battle, a team whose starting line-up had been acquired for a measly £3.8 million tamed another which boasted £184 million worth of talent on the field, along with the likes of Mario Balotelli, Carlos Tevez and Aleksandar Kolarov on the bench.

The Ajax fans were not ones to mask their rage at City’s money-wielding ways, as they displayed posters of a sheikh clutching a bag-full of dollars. However, while their club’s rich tradition of developing home-grown players may not land them a place in the knockout stages of Europe’s biggest club competition due to the sheer level of competition in Group D of the Champions League, Wednesday night was a small consolation for those who still believed in the sanctity of a youth academy.

Manchester City, despite taking an early lead in front of a partisan crowd in Amsterdam, were thumped 3-1 by Ajax, with the hosts displaying a masterclass in movement, passing and defending in front of a 52,000-strong crowd. Taking better care of the ball and looking more incisive upfront, Ajax’s youthful outfit tore their much-fancied opponents to shreds. City, on the other hand, were left to rue their manager’s lack of respect for stability and pre-match preparation, along with their own frailties at the back, which deservedly left them on the losing end after having been spared the blushes last time around against Borussia Dortmund by their star keeper Joe Hart.

To say that Mancini failed to implement a specific system on Wednesday night however would be a terrible understatement, as the Italian, as he has been doing at an alarming frequency throughout the season, kept chopping and changing his side’s shape, going from a back-four to a back-three to eventually a non-existent backline, as the Citizens went gung-ho in search of an improbable comeback at the Amsterdam Arena.

It is a problem that has maligned City all season, the results of which are clearly visible in their defensive numbers, both domestically and in Europe. For a team that boasted the best defensive record in the league last season, Manchester City’s backline has been more awry than resolute this time around, keeping just a single clean sheet in more than two months of competition.

Mancini has spared none of his previous season’s regulars in a rotation policy which just hasn’t clicked, with its effects clearly seen in their lacklustre displays. Joe Hart, the only member of the team sure of his place, has been the standout performer throughout, making sure that only seven of the 71 attempts on City’s goal in Europe have found the back of the net.

Gael Clichy was forced to play at left-back, centre-back and right-back at different junctures of the game against Ajax, while Mancini, possibly recounting his summer trip to Vegas, turned a blind eye to common knowledge and football formations, and gambled on the quartet of Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko, Mario Balotelli and Carlos Tevez to take the field at the same time, with each of them clueless about their roles in the side.

Yet, a quick glance at the history books would suggest that Mancini’s listlessness in Europe is not a thing anew. Despite having won the Serie A thrice while at Inter Milan and the Premier League last season with City, Mancini has not once been able to steer his sides past the last eight of the Champions League, the exact reason why he was given the boot by Inter boss Massimo Moratti in 2008.

His ineptitude even angered some of his own players, as Micah Richards very diplomatically suggested after the game: “It’s not something that we’ve worked on a lot, we’re just used to a back four. But the manager likes it and if we want to do well then we’ll have to work harder on it. It’s a hard system and I think the players prefer 4-4-2 but he’s the manager and we’ll do what he says.”

Since Carlos Tevez’s histrionics in Munich last term, fallouts have been the theme of City’s Champions League campaigns, and Richards’ revelation suggests that some of the gaffer’s decisions of late have not sat down well with the club’s big names. And while the reverse round of fixtures could see City’s fortunes improve, the club are already all but buried in their Group of Death, with only one point from their three games thus far.

The Sheikhs would have been happy with City’s Premier League success last season, but surely their ultimate aims are to scale the heights of the Champions League. However, a more pressing concern for them would be to balance the books in light of the Financial Fair Play rules, for which qualification to the knockout rounds would be a bare necessity. Handing Mancini a new five-year contract as fruits of his success last season was a knee-jerk reaction, but also maybe one that the club may live to regret, given the Italian’s failings on the international stage.

Perhaps the only semblance of expectancy in Wednesday’s game came from Ryan Babel’s off-key performance on the left side of Ajax’s otherwise well-oiled attack. However, the former Liverpool man would tell Mancini first-hand that the Italian is well-advised to stop tinkering his troops beyond repair. After all, that is what did Babel’s former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez in.