Is Roberto Mancini really a top-notch Manager?

Well, before derby-day, I was asked this by my little brother, after reading the latest outburst from Mancini about "United's lead is a lie". Well, how can that be a lie? They are leading by that margin, the entire world sees it, why cant Mancini see it and accept that his team, and his management to be precise has been poor throughout the season.

Starting from the transfers made in the summer window to the departure of Mario Balotelli in the winter window, nothing seemed to be planned from City's perspective. While a Javi of the higher caliber was available in Javi Martinez, City ended up getting Javi Garcia, and sold Nigel De Jong, Who is the better CDM, I would go for Nigel De Jong. Then they ended up getting the best player of Swansea City and that best player did not have a season like Michu's; Scott Sinclair. Well, Roberto, if Scotty was a top level player, Chelsea would not have sold him cheaply to a Swansea City. In came Jack Rodwell, well-hyped, truely over-rated English youngster in my opinion, was never going to displace Yaya Toure or even Javi Garcia for that matter. All in all, a lot of money was spent again, but was spent foolishly even by City's highly foolish spending standards. Yes, I am angry because the league was fantastic last season and City's incompetence, or to be precise Mancini's incompetence has meant United have run away with it.

Apart from the transfer activities, the week-to-week quotes from the self proclaimed "Best manager of the league currently" have been far than amusing, well, even sometimes, agonizingly stupid.

No one plays well against United because they only play with fear, said Mancini. Every team that plays against United plays very soft because they think this game is difficult, they can't beat them. If you play strong against United, you can beat them, like you can beat us

This is one of the most bizarre comment coming from a professional manager, yes, it its some one in the street coming up with a theory like that you can understand their frustration and anger at other teams not giving United a game, but from a professional manager you do not expect such remarks, labeling others "coward" and alleging them of not playing to their full potential.

Clearly this can help us win the Premier League because we don't play in the Europa League, Mancini said. But getting into it was our target tonight. We wanted to win.

Mancini said on the eve of getting knocked out of the Champions League and not even qualifying for the Europa League. How can you say that if you are a proud competitor? Well, I do not understand, If I am a manager of a football club who are the reigning Premier League champions, I will be going all out to win each competition. This is not a good comment to make either about the Champions League or the Europa League.

He has been lamenting his players all season, has seldom took responsibilities on his shoulder, and has always found an excuse after every failure. The failure that he brought upon the club by going with three 3-defenders at the back strategy, the failure to get Silva, Yaya, Aguero and Nasri up to the level before the start of the campaign, the failure to understand that there were plenty of big names to grab before the FFP rulings in the summer window, with the added advantage of being the current champions, City could have easily lured young talents, exceptional talents to the Etihad but Mancini went to the 2nd choice players. His constant tinkling with the starting XI, the playing formation left City in a precarious position and the gap was already a huge one, when City lost to United at the Etihad. The gap was up to six points at that time. And Balotelli started the game ahead of Dzeko and Tevez, and he was left to rue that decision.