Lawro on City: How Mancini can integrate Nasri into a title-challenging team
Manchester City now have an embarrassment of top players having bought Samir Nasri yesterday.
But Roberto Mancini won’t be lying awake at night worrying where they all fit in.
Top clubs with this sort of money to spend just concentrate on getting real top quality through the door and in the course of the season there will be lots of opportunities.
Nasri helps City because he is versatile. They could play 4-2-3-1, and he can play on the right of the three, or the left, or behind the centre forward. It is really interesting.
Mancini has bought a really gifted footballer and happy days for him.
Mancini isn’t the sort of manager to play the same team every game and if they are struggling he will use his top quality bench. He will change virtually a third of the team to get what he needs.
I would have Nigel De Jong holding and then let Mancini pick five really attacking players. They can be played in all sorts of ways - that’s what you get from top players from Europe and South America.
These lads can play anywhere in the front four, all interchangeable. Fluid.
This kind of buy keeps up the level of consistency from the players already there too.
If they look around the dressing room, they know if they have a quiet one and are not at it, they will be out for the next match. That is what it says to his dressing room too.
Are they hogging too many players? I think Adam Johnson will still get a shot, because he offers something different. I think James Milner may not. Milner can play in a variety of positions though.
But Aguero, Tevez, Silva and Nasri are a different quality to Johnson, Milner and those types of players. It is another level up. And that is ultimately what Mancini is aiming at.
If they can drag up the other players like Barry and Johnson then the more the merrier.
Can money buy you the title? Ultimately no, but it can certainly push you a very long way towards winning it.
The dynamic of the dressing room is important. If you get one of two in there now who know they won’t be playing on a regular basis, Balotelli say, they have to show themselves of good stock to buy into that.
Or do they cause problems and say they are going to leave? We all know about player power these days.
I can’t see Carlos Tevez going at this stage. Inter Milan are pleading poverty.
I think Mancini will tell him to get his head down, and come January, if City are in the top two he may just be tempted to stay for the rest of the season with a title challenge on the cards.
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