Friday night discussion. Tonight: Milan Mandaric

[Head Honcho]

Most of our opinions on Milan Mandaric will largely depend on when you started supporting City. A quick search of his name on here will prove that!

 

His tenure was a rollercoaster ride that's for sure but I loved every minute of it.

 

For me his legacy was finding us the owners we have today and for that I shall be forever grateful.

 

So what are your opinions off him?

 

 

[Chrysalis]

Overall was good for the club, he gave us some ambition again and ultimately his tenure ended up selling to King Power.

[Jon the Hat]

I am not 100% convinced he really saved us from disaster.

He saw us drop to our worst ever league position.

He got lucky selling us to our current owners, but not as lucky as we did.

Edited 5 March 2021 by Jon the Hat

[Matt]

Ultimately he saved us, first and foremost it obviously worked for him and thankfully it worked for us.

 

He arguably had a massive say in where we are now appointing Nigel Pearson and selling us to the best owners in the world, I think he'd have sold us to anyone, it just so happened they were gudduns' he sold us to.

 

Let's gloss over the inbetween.

 

Edited 5 March 2021 by Matt

[Freeman's Wharfer]

He was a necessary evil at the time. Swung into town on a wave of good PR when we were desperate for something, anything, positive, and used it to get a ridiculously good deal.

 

Chased the quick fix and found that throwing money at it and playing Russian roulette with his managers didn’t work before getting lucky with the appointment of Pearson. Not forgetting, of course, that he was weighing up whether to cut and run when we dropped to League One initially.

 

Once we were back to the level we were at when he took us over he wanted to sell to the highest or first bidder and did nothing to repay Pearson for having got us back there so brilliantly and then taken us to the play-offs. Big measure of the man, that.

 

When he did sell, it was our turn to get lucky. He’d have sold us to everyone and anyone and we struck gold with it being King Power. And it came at the right time as he was about to sell off Belvoir Drive and take the real estate money due to the facilities “not being fit for purpose” and training at Loughborough University supposedly being a better alternative (funny how we spent the best part of another decade there...)

 

We danced with the devil and got away with it. When you look at us and the other clubs he’s owned, it’s clear that it could have been much much worse.

 

 

[Fox92]

I remember being excited when he first come in. 

 

He made some shocking decisions, and we went through managers, but at least he did bring in Nigel Pearson which turned the club around. Wouldn't be where we are today without that appointment.

 

[HesNotGudjonsonn2]

I have seen it posted on here before that he took LCFC over and left LCFC in the same league position in the championship.

 

My analogy would always be that a car behind speeding up and a car in front breaking down will always pass. It depends which trajectory you are on at that point.

 

I look back and always think he did good for us....it was so so bad those few years before.

[urban.spaceman]

Football wise we’d been in decline for a few years, since Celtic nicked O’Neill and Lennon, after unprecedented success and stability.

Business wise, we’d been a bit volatile for almost a decade. Pierpointe and the Gang of Four, Smeaton floating us on the stock market, Elsom etc all during O’Neill’s era made us already a bit of a miss - then thriftily building the Walkers was supposed to push us on a bit, but the quadruple whammy of the cost, relegation, Dennis ****ing Wise AND the ITV Digital collapse, we were very lucky to survive. 
 

Mandaric wasn’t perfect but in hindsight, he got us to a place where we could be bought by the Thais. 

[davieG]

On 06/08/2020 at 13:19, davieG said:

To be fair they didn't have much of a choice Adams had no budget and Levein was under orders to cut the existing budget. I doubt those that followed were much better off.

 

Mandaric came in with all sorts of promises of promotion but ended with relegation but wanted to do everything on the cheap, I'd guess that on balance he never put that much into the club certainly not enough to get us promoted.

 

He bought  us on the cheap with his scaremongering publicity and sold us for a profit. But then he was a business man first, second and last. 

 

Fortunately he stumble on a fantastic buyer.

 

[Vacamion]

 

It's weird that Portsmouth sank and almost disappeared after he sold up his interest there yet we soared after he sold us.

 

It's only sheer luck that we haven't ended up like Coventry.

 

The point of Mandaric is to make us fully appreciate Vichai and Top.

 

 

[Langston]

Can't stand the bloke.

[Jobyfox]

We were achieving nothing and going nowhere fast before Mandaric came in. He gave us back something we hadn't had for a while: hope. 

 

There may have been a lot of twists, turns, lucky breaks and "butterflies flapping wings" for us to get to where we are now, but I will always be grateful to Mandaric for changing our trajectory. It was a necessary gamble that could have gone many ways. Fortunately for us we hit the jack pot. 

[Corky]

He got lucky with Pearson. Spoke far too much in the media and the farcical 2007/08 season will never be forgotten.

 

Thankfully he appointed a steady hand to oversee a change in everything about the club. So much so that Vichai and Top realised the mistake in allowing him to leave first time and getting him back.

 

I know their success is much greater, their tenure longer but I feel much happier with the current set-up and the way they approach things. Mandaric came in with big noise and left with a better reputation than it might've been through Pearson's work.

[Strokes]

I find it hard to hate him because he did lift us (eventually) and he did invest. His constant meddling and interference stopped us becoming better faster.

The best part of his tenure was the day he left and that says it all really.

[Head Honcho]

I think I'm right in saying that he appointed five managers in under three years and another five caretaker managers

 

However, we shouldn't forget how awful the administration he replaced were. They saved our club from extinction and I appreciate that but they didn't have a clue when it came to dealing with agents and they would have ruined us had they not sold to us MM.

 

Some of the contracts they sanctioned under Craig Levein were staggering.

 

I was out in Amsterdam watching Scotland play the Netherlands and on the flight back I was sat next to Ferrie Bodde. He played for Swansea and he was very good friend of Mark de Vries. He told me that on the day we signed Mark de Vries from Hearts he rang him and said "I've just won the lottery"

 

Saying that his last minute FA Cup winner against Spurs in 2006 when we was 2-0 down was worth the £1.5m fee     

[Langston]

3 minutes ago, Head Honcho said:

I think I'm right in saying that he appointed five managers in under three years and another five caretaker managers

 

However, we shouldn't forget how awful the administration he replaced were. They saved our club from extinction and I appreciate that but they didn't have a clue when it came to dealing with agents and they would have ruined us had they not sold to us MM.

 

Some of the contracts they sanctioned under Craig Levein were staggering.

 

I was out in Amsterdam watching Scotland play the Netherlands and on the flight back I was sat next to Ferrie Bodde. He played for Swansea and he was very good friend of Mark de Vries. He told me that on the day we signed Mark de Vries from Hearts he rang him and said "I've just won the lottery"

 

Saying that his last minute FA Cup winner against Spurs in 2006 when we was 2-0 down was worth the £1.5m fee     

 

De Vries didn't cost us that much, did he?! 

[TJB-fox]

Huge football fan with a finance brain that didn’t have a clue about footballing decisions. For such a successful guy in his business career he was swayed multiple times on big decisions during his tenure here, maybe because of his lack knowledge of the game. Got led astray by individuals that took advantage of him at Leicester, but overall a good guy. Got lucky in who he sold the club to though, if we’d had some crap new owners Milan would be viewed as even worse than he is.

Having said that, he did take over during an incredibly messy time so maybe deserves some credit. Didn’t half make some awful decisions though, jeez.

Edited 5 March 2021 by TJB-fox

[davieG]

9 minutes ago, Head Honcho said:

I think I'm right in saying that he appointed five managers in under three years and another five caretaker managers

 

However, we shouldn't forget how awful the administration he replaced were. They saved our club from extinction and I appreciate that but they didn't have a clue when it came to dealing with agents and they would have ruined us had they not sold to us MM.

 

Some of the contracts they sanctioned under Craig Levein were staggering.

 

I was out in Amsterdam watching Scotland play the Netherlands and on the flight back I was sat next to Ferrie Bodde. He played for Swansea and he was very good friend of Mark de Vries. He told me that on the day we signed Mark de Vries from Hearts he rang him and said "I've just won the lottery"

 

Saying that his last minute FA Cup winner against Spurs in 2006 when we was 2-0 down was worth the £1.5m fee     

I believe that Levein actually cut the wage bill considerably and that's probably a big contribution to why he failed.

[TJB-fox]

Just now, davieG said:

I believe that Levein actually cut the wage bill considerable and that's probably a big contribution to why he failed.

He did. Cut the big earners and slashed the wage bill massively but some of that cash was returned to him in the wage budget which meant that some of his signings were paid a lot more than they should have been. 

[fox_favourite]

I have a memory of when it was announced that he had sold our beloved club to an unknown company called King Power. I remember not being happy at the time and thinking we could go the way of Portsmouth, especially when they talked about Europe. Now look at us, complaining about our recent performances sitting 3rd, yes 3rd in the prem ahead of Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal. Not forgetting that our name is proudly engraved of the trophy!!

 

 

Edited 5 March 2021 by fox_favourite

[davieG]

Just now, TJB-fox said:

He did. Cut the big earners and slashed the wage bill massively but some of that cash was returned to him in the wage budget which meant that some of his signings were paid a lot more than they should have been. 

He was also plus circa £1mill to the good on transfers.

 

They may have been paid more than they should but not more than the like of Keown, Benjamin, Scowcroft, Walker, Dabizas, Blake, Gillespie.

 

He brought in Fryatt, Hume, Johansson,  Kisnorbo, all decent for that era.

[TJB-fox]

Just now, davieG said:

He was also plus circa £1mill to the good on transfers.

 

They may have been paid more than they should but not more than the like of Keown, Benjamin, Scowcroft, Walker, Dabizas, Blake, Gillespie.

 

He brought in Fryatt, Hume, Johansson,  Kisnorbo, all decent for that era.

I didn’t say they were on more than the big earners, just that some were overpaid. Like you said, part of Levein’s downfall was the size of the task he took on. Getting rid of serious players on huge wages and bringing in cheaper alternatives did help rebalance the books but we obviously lost a lot of quality. Couple of the Scottish boys got good contracts/better than what they should have been given and that happened a lot under Milan Martin especially with Martin Allen and the agent the club used. I agree with what you’re saying though, Levein had a tough, tough ask and didn’t do too badly, despite the state of the club.

[mancunianfox]

We were selling players to pay the wages before he came in though and I dread to think what would have happened if he hadn't. In 2006 I think we were more likely to do a Coventry than they were themselves. Without him I don't think we would have been where we are today so he did provide a bridge from an awful era to a good one. He gave us a cash injection to stay afloat, employed Pearson and Walsh and sold to good owners although this could easily have gone either way. 

 

As an owner he was way too involved for someone so misguided; he clearly listened to the wrong people/agents and made multiple poor hires (Allen, Megson and Holloway in the same season is insane). Fortunately when he found a good manager he did mostly get out of the way - when he was more involved he was mostly a disaster.

[Corky]

Why he didn't convince Vichai and Top they had a perfectly good manager and any takeover came with a man who had nearly delivered consecutive promotions in charge is beyond me. Sticking with Pearson and good financial backing and I think we may've been promoted in 2011.

 

Even at Portsmouth their best manager walked out before being asked to return.

[mancunianfox]

25 minutes ago, davieG said:

He was also plus circa £1mill to the good on transfers.

 

They may have been paid more than they should but not more than the like of Keown, Benjamin, Scowcroft, Walker, Dabizas, Blake, Gillespie.

 

He brought in Fryatt, Hume, Johansson,  Kisnorbo, all decent for that era.

This is roughly the first two transfer windows under Mandaric. I feel this needs some kind of Trigger Warning...

 

Summer: DJ Campbell, Josh Low, Radostin Kishishev, Bruno N'Gotty, Carl Cort, Hossein Kaebi, Sergio Hellings, Jamie Clapham.

 

January: Zsolt Lascko, Gabor Bori, Steve Howard, Matt Oakley, Lee Hendrie, Kelvin Etuhu and Barry Hayles. We got Marton Fulop on loan at some point in between who was good until getting recalled.

Edited 5 March 2021 by mancunianfox
Edited as I am dumb and can't read a conversation sorry