Dalglish on Mancini expectation

Kenny Dalglish believes Manchester City's vast wealth has guaranteed added pressure and not instant success for Roberto Mancini - and provoked envy akin to that directed at his own title-winning reign at Blackburn Rovers.

While the Liverpool manager insisted there was no comparison between the resources of Sheikh Mansour and the late Jack Walker, Rovers' benefactor when Dalglish brought the 1995 Premier League championship to Ewood Park, he said he could identify with the demands upon Mancini and the disparaging claims that any success City achieved would have been bought.

"It's not Roberto Mancini's fault that Manchester City have got wealthy owners and are prepared to spend money," Dalglish said. "He will be judged on results and that is the only way you can be judged. There is no guarantee of instant success just because he has money at his disposal.

"There is nobody anywhere who has won a trophy without having had some money to spend. He might have more to spend than most people would expect, or most people would hope for, but along with that comes added pressure. I don't see how anyone could be disrespectful towards what Roberto Mancini has achieved in football, whether he has money or not."

Dalglish claimed Blackburn used the accusation they were buying success in the mid-1990s "as an asset". He said: "We never had that much money. People believed that the players were getting paid fortunes but we had one player who left for another club and got four times the wages he was on at Blackburn. We just laughed at it. It was ignorance. People didn't know what the financial situation was. Yes, we signed Alan Shearer, but Alan Shearer signed because he wanted to play for us as well as the money that was paid. Alan got well paid but there was no one at Blackburn on extortionate money.

"I don't think there are any parallels. The only thing that is consistent between the two clubs is that everybody else is jealous, or were jealous of the perceived money that Blackburn supposedly had and are jealous of the money that City obviously do have."

Source: The Guardian

This story has been reproduced from today's media. It does not necessarily represent the position of Liverpool Football Club.