Ian Wright: Manchester City Flops Emmanuel Adebayor, Robinho & Joleon Lescott Responsible For Mark Hughes Sacking

Not the Wright kind of signings, claims former Gunner...

Mark Hughes - Manchester City (PA)
Arsenal legend Ian Wright has declared that players like Emmanuel Adebayor, Robinho and Joleon Lescott were responsible for Mark Hughes being given the pink slip at Manchester City.

The former Gunner believes that the aforementioned players were overpriced and ultimately led to their gaffer's exit from Eastlands.

Wright said in his column for The Sun: "When a manager goes into a job, he not only thinks about whether a certain signing could benefit the team, he also thinks whether this player could get him the sack.

"In Robinho, Emmanuel Adebayor and Joleon Lescott, these three signings, for various reasons, contributed to Hughes getting the boot.

"Robinho and Adebayor are not players you would want in the trenches.

"When you hear certain stories coming out of City about Robinho, he doesn't strike me as the kind of player a manager can hang his hat on, and Adebayor left a club like Arsenal among all sorts of player unrest stories.

"They have not lived up to their very expensive price tags and I have the feeling they will not care less that Hughes has been replaced."

Switching his focus to the City back line, Wright continued: "Lescott is an excellent player but was a bad signing purely in terms of how much was paid. City effectively got Everton into a headlock and made them sell a player they did not want to.

"Of course, in the end, it was good business for Everton as £24 million is a hell of a lot of money.

"Yet they ended up with a player who, through no fault of his own, was worth nowhere near that amount of money and Lescott has found it very difficult to keep up to the standard of his price tag."

The former England striker glanced at the task that awaits new boss Roberto Mancini, saying that the Italian could be headed for the chopping block if he does not produce the kind of results that the owners expect of him.

Wright said: "Now, Mancini has been given a three-year contract but I wonder whether he will still be at Eastlands in three years time.

"If he doesn't start doing well immediately, Mancini will find himself under pressure - particularly as he will buy big next month and City's owners will once again be expecting immediate results."

Adithya Ananth, Goal.com UK
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Hosted by Stephen Crawford & Adam Scime
2/15/12
And with that, we're going to call it a night, folks.

We've had two tremendous matches today, so lets hope the intensity keeps up in the next clashes!

Until next time, this is LIVE commentator Stephen Crawford signing off.

From everyone here at Goal.com, thanks for joining us!

2/15/12
All this focus on the Arsenal and Milan game should not take away from another cracker earlier tonight between Zenit and Benfica. The Russians came from a goal down to lead 2-1 in the closing minutes before Oscar Cardozo levelled things for Benfica, but it wasn't over there as Roman Shirokov won the game for Zenit in the 88th minute.

Here's the thoughts of Benfica coach Jorge Jesus, who felt his side deserved a point from the game.
2/15/12
Arsenal keeper Wojciech Szczesny bemoaned his side's luck tonight but refused to give up. Here's some of his quotes:

"They were the better team on the night and that's the story of the day.

"We have to keep fighting, pick ourselves up, get the confidence back and challenge in the other competitions and in the second leg of this tie too.

"They punished us on every occasion; they scored some quality goals and they deserved to win."

Full story HERE


2/15/12
Another Milan player who was willing to share his thoughts after the match was Mark van Bommel, who has urged caution ahead of the second leg in London.

“The score made it look like it was an easy game, but it certainly wasn't.

(Strange... it looked pretty easy from where I was sitting, but hey.)

“I do not think it's over yet. I remember a clash between Milan and Deportivo la Coruna when Milan was also ahead by four goals, and in the end Deportivo eliminated Milan.

“I went into the Arsenal dressing room after the match to speak to Robin van Persie. I had agreed with him to swap shirts – my sons are big fans of his and he brought two for them. They will be delighted.


Van Bommel went on to talk about a possible move to PSV in the future, but was quick to point out his terms for the move.

“I've spoken with PSV, but we don't have an agreement yet. The club has to decide what they want.

“If Louis van Gaal turns out to be the new coach, I won't go.”


2/15/12
Next up is the Milan maestro Clarence Seedorf. He only managed 12 minutes on the pitch, but watching from the sidelines he was delighted at how his team mates had dominated the game.

"Tonight everything went in the right direction and we did a very good match. You don't start a match thinking to win 4-0, but at the end i think we deserved it coz we played very well."

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