Just a week after Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement from Manchester United and was replaced by Everton boss David Moyes on a 6 year deal, Manchester City have now fired their manager Roberto Mancini, as reported by the BBC. The Italian had been in charge for three and a half years and had only signed a new five year contract last July after leading the club to the Barclays Premier League title beating their arch-rivals United on the last day of the season on goal difference.

According to a statement released by the club Mancini “had failed to achieve any of the club’s targets, with the exception of qualification for next season’s Champions League”. This announcement does not come as a complete surprise amidst the reports of City officials meeting with current Malaga boss Manuel Pellegrini’s agent in April which Mancini was incensed by and he had publicly questioned why the club had not immediately denied the stories linking Pellegrini with his job in the past few days. It seems as though the FA Cup final defeat to Wigan Athletic on Saturday may have been the final straw for City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.

Even though it had been rumored already and this firing does come as a complete shock, we were only just getting used to the red half of Manchester having a new manager but now the blue half will also have a new manager with Malaga boss Manuel Pellegrini looking like the early favourite with Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Rafa Benitez, Brendan Rogers and Jurgen Klopp coming in next according to OddsChecker.

So after last week we now know the top 2 teams in the Premier League will have new managers next season and of course we already knew the 3rd team – Chelsea – will also have a new boss for the next campaign. This has to be good news for the Gunners as they will be the only top team to have the same boss and staff (ok Tottenham may get a mention here too). This is a clear advantage to Arsenal as the other clubs will need time for the new bosses to settle in and implement their methods and there are no guarantees of course when a new man takes over.

It will be interesting to see if the Pellegrini rumors turn out to be true but City are not in an immediate rush as they have said that Mancini’s assistant, Brian Kidd, will be the man in charge for the last 2 matches of the season plus the club’s summer tour of the USA.