Manuel Pellegrini "has signed a three-year contract" to succeed Roberto Mancini as manager of Man City and will immediately be tasked with the challenge of winning back the EPL title, according to Mark Cue of the LONDON TIMES. The 59-year-old Chilean will take up the role next Monday "and will work alongside" club CEO Ferran Soriano and Sporting Dir Txiki Begiristain on taking the '11-12 champion in a new direction after it failed to negotiate its way past the group stage of the Champions League under Mancini and finished runners-up to ManU and Wigan Athletic in the EPL and FA Cup, respectively. Pellegrini's appointment "has been long expected" (LONDON TIMES, 6/14). Pellegrini said, "Everyone knows if you arrive at a club like Manchester City you need to win titles. I think Manchester City have invested a lot of money to improve the squad every year and try, every year, to win titles. They were not successful in winning some titles but I am sure we are going to win -- maybe the Premier League, the Champions League. We will try to win a lot" (MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS, 6/14).
'HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT': In London, Louise Taylor wrote Pellegrini "quite possibly needed to mug up on the precise meaning of 'holistic management' before finally arriving at the Etihad Stadium." Much fun was poked at Man City when its club statement announcing Mancini's dismissal last month declared that his successor must satisfy a newly identified requirement to "develop a holistic approach to all aspects of football at the club." It sounds like the sort of thing Man City's "corporate jargon loving" former CEO Garry Cook would have said and, sure enough, Cook recently endorsed the stance adopted by Begiristain and Soriano. Cook said, "The holistic element is understanding the way a football club runs, not just the way a team wins games. When companies sign [sponsorship] agreements with a club they want access to the core proposition, which is the talent. They want the manager, they want the players, so the player and the manager have to give up their time for that" (GUARDIAN, 6/14).
