Roberto Mancini has broken his silence on the events surrounding his dismissal from Inter this summer. In the first part of an in-depth interview with Corriere dello Sport, the 52-year-old tactician also talks Yaya Toure and Juve but he began by explaining about his departure from the nerazzurri, stating that; “We shook hands, like good friends do. My relationship with the club remains good and I’ve no reason to hold any grudges. The resolution of my contract was by mutual consent and I left the team in better condition than I found it”.
 

Asked where he thought things started to go wrong he replied; “Perhaps in January when we had a black-out. If we could have converted some of the defeats into draws then I firmly believe we would have been in the preliminaries of the Champions League instead of Roma”. He was then asked to comment on recent accusations by Ruud Gullit that his preparation in the summer was poor, Mancini responded; “That’s nonsense; the last person who should be making statements like this is Gullit, what does he know about management that qualifies him to speak about others? I had a dedicated backroom team who recorded everything and the team was prepared for August 20 that’s for sure”.  

Next subject was that of his ex-colleague at Manchester City, Yaya Toure. Mancini stated that; “He was always one of my goals, we almost had him a year ago but he chose to stay in Manchester. Toure is like Ibrahimovic, he’s one of those players who always make a difference. If another Serie A club would have taken him and Ibra they could have fought with Juve for the title”. When asked about Toure’s omission from Guardiola’s new-look Manchester City he replied; “It’s not my problem but I would like to take this opportunity to say that I have never criticised Guardiola just like I’ve never criticised any of my colleagues who work in management”.  

Mancini had no doubts about where this season’s Serie A title would end up when he declared that; “I’m sure Juve will win the Scudetto, the signing of Higuain has made the difference. It’s clear he won’t score 36 goals like he did for Napoli as he will be saved for Champions League games this season. The bianconeri are light years ahead of everyone else and having already won five consecutive titles, who knows how many more they’ll win”. On the challengers he explained that; “Napoli, Roma, Inter and Milan are probably the closest with Fiorentina and Lazio also able to create problems. De Laurentiis has invested the Higuain money well at Napoli and they could reap the rewards in years to come”.

Steve Mitchell @barafundler