West Ham United may just have pulled off the summer’s managerial coup by appointing Manuel Pellegrini, affectionately known as This Charming Man.
The Chilean’s sobriquet is taken from a Smiths song and was given by adoring Manchester City fans during the success-soaked years of 2013-16. Pellegrini was, indeed, the epitome of a genteel presence, never resorting to bitterness or sniping. More importantly, though, he combined this human quality with the hard edge required to be a winner.
In handing Pellegrini a three-year contract and up to £7m annual salary, David Sullivan and David Gold have made him the club’s highest-paid manager and the West Ham co-owners should be optimistic that their investment will be rewarded. Pellegrini has been a manager for 30 years and this is his 13th club across six countries – Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Spain, England and most recently China.
Pellegrini won cups with Universidad Católica in Chile, and titles at Quito (Ecuador), San Lorenzo and River Plate (both Argentina), though before arriving at City his only European trophy was Villarreal’s 2004 Intertoto Cup success. Yet taking Villarreal to a Champions League semi-final and quarter-final impressed Real Madrid, who appointed him in the summer of 2009.
What followed was a then-record 96 points, though his side finished second to the Lionel Messi-led Barcelona, who accumulated 99.
This resumé shows Pellegrini can handle big-ego players and budgets of different scales. At City and Real, Pellegrini enjoyed endless finance, though he was trophyless and admitted to scant control over recruitment at the latter. At Villarreal (2004-09) and Málaga (2010-13) there were more modest budgets and he a found a way to elevate each.
The mood music from some West Ham fans about succeeding David Moyes is muted despite Pellegrini remaining City’s most successful manager of the Premier League era, even following Pep Guardiola’s breathtaking 2017-18 campaign.
Pellegrini won a Premier League and League Cup double in his first season in England. He was unable to defend the title – only José Mourinho and Sir Alex Ferguson have managed the feat in the post-1992 era – but responded by guiding City to a further League Cup triumph and a Champions League semi-final against Real in his final year.
The latter achievement can be rated particularly noteworthy given how Pellegrini was left a dead man walking when City confirmed in February of that season that Guardiola would replace him. Pellegrini was undermined and more than a little annoyed. Yet he kept his anger private, in keeping with an ultra-professionalism that, with his balanced temperament and shrewd intelligence, marks him as one of the premier managers working in Europe.
He may not be in the super-class of Mourinho or Guardiola but the man known as the Engineer is a high-class operator. When achieving that double at City he matched the feat Mourinho accomplished in his first term on these shores. And he did so in the wake of a Roberto Mancini four-year tenure that had become ever more chaotic. It featured a fall-out with Carlos Tevez in which the Argentinian flew home during a near-six-month strike in the championship-winning season of 2011-12; and the following year’s title defense had the Italian embroiled in an embarrassing training ground bust-up with Mario Balotelli.
What City required, and got, in Pellegrini was a manager who could steady the club, move it on from the turbulent tenure of the Italian, and deliver. Aged 60 when he took control, Pellegrini proved himself instantly.
He did so playing a more attractive football than Mancini deployed: an attack-first mode that thrilled City fans. By February Pellegrini’s team had piled up 115 goals in all competitions and they would sweep to the title with 102 league goals.
Pellegrini’s low-key demeanor is the polar opposite of the front-foot-first style he demands on the field. This can annoy some correspondents who interpret it as an unwillingness to engage properly. Supporters, though, will not care less. What they will want is results while playing the West Ham Way, a shorthand for a kind of free-flowing football.
In this context they can be supremely content, as Pellegrini can be billed as the antithesis of Moyes and the Scot’s predecessor-but-one, Sam Allardyce.
At City the prevailing criticism of Pellegrini was how entrenched his approach was. The attack-at-all costs ethos could make him look tactically naive, as it did in Champions League last-16 defeats by Barcelona in consecutive seasons, when his side were knocked out 4-1 and 3-1 on aggregate.
Yet a sense says Pellegrini should be cute enough to temper his West Ham team when required, while harnessing the attacking talents of Michail Antonio, Manuel Lanzini, Marko Arnautovic, Javier Hernández and Andy Carroll.
If so the new manager will offer entertainment to lift the mood at the London Stadium. This is dearly required following the serious disquiet of last season that was aimed at the board, and the team’s often listless displays.
The Guardian Sport
