He was known as ‘This Charming Man’ at Manchester City but a certain West Ham based Geordie striker may be ready to disagree.
For all the quiet and dignified personality, Manuel Pellegrini is no sentimentalist as his attitude to the last two game, when AC has apparently been ready to go, is concerned.
Instead, over the two games we have seen six West Ham substitutions – Hernandez, Cresswell, and even Perez coming on whilst against Newcastle the chosen bench players were Masuaku, Obiang and Wilshere despite the manager claiming he is a week behind the big fella in terms of squad training.
Many bosses would have given him a run out against his first club in front of fans who still have a soft spot for him yesterday – even a five minute cameo may have worked but for whatever reason ‘this charming man’ was having none of it.
Instead – for his own reasons he chose to ignore him – as he continues to take the club on its route to ‘pure football’ as demonstrated to some extent against City and yesterday far more emphatically against Newcastle. Beautiful to watch it was too!
So, Cardiff City next and whether he will choose to call on AC’s services remains to be seen but should the big man continue to sit it out on the sidelines it will be interesting to see the reaction.
This ‘charming man’ appears to have an iron fist inside that highly cool approach to management.
