Why newly-shorn Mancini and Torres should heed the lessons of Sampson... and Ginola!

By David Anderson

Published 10:05 28/07/10

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For all the zillions spent by Manchester City this summer, Blues fans should still be a little uneasy about their title chances.

There's something that worries me about City.

It's not that I think Roberto Mancini has bought the wrong players or that, as an Italian, he won't be able to adapt to the unique demands of the Premier League.

No, what bothers me about Mancini is that he's had his hair cut.

I did a double take when I first saw his new look on the City website and I only realised it was him from his photograph on the wall behind him.

Gone are his long flickable locks, which were unmistakably latin, and now he looks plain, ordinary and, well, British.

Much of that aura and sophistication, which surrounded this legend of Italian football, has vanished for me and he has gone from Supermancini to Clark Kent in one fell snip.

I seriously fear the repercussions for City's season of this Sampson effect.

Mancini won't be the first footballing figure to come a cropper after getting a crop top.

We all laughed at Chris Waddle at Italia 90 for his mullet hairdo, which its rats' tails down the back of his neck which looked so 1980s.

But the nation wasn't laughing when he had it shaved off for the semi-final against West Germany and promptly missed that penalty.

Take Fernando Torres and the striker has not been the same player since he binned his Alice band and paid a visit to the hairdressers.

People may put his loss of form down to his injuries, but I firmly believe he had a rubbish World Cup because he'd had his hair shorn.

I've heard that Chelsea were so concerned by this that they considered making it a stipulation of his contract if he signed for them that he would grow his hair long again.

They should know and even the Special One's fortunes rose and fell in tandem with how long he went without visiting a barber's.

The sultry David Ginola, who did more since Gary Lineker's legs in 1990 to introduce women to football, was never the same when he got his short back and sides.

With the new season less than three weeks away, the fear is that the damage has already been done to City's title hopes.

They can only hope that Mancini's hair will grow back before it is too late.

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