Have Roberto Mancini’s mind games benefited City?

Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho may be the kings of playing mind games on their opponents, but Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini may have something to say about that.

The Italian has made a bevy of odd comments about his club this season. To be fair, they have worked quite well.

Mind games or not, City are in poll position to win the English Premier League title on the final day of the 2011-12 campaign.

But they must beat Queens Park Rangers on Sunday, May 13 in order to lift their first league trophy since 1968.

To be perfectly honest, City should trounce QPR, especially when considering their 17-1-0 record at the Etihad Stadium.

Now then, Mancini’s mind games have taken a lot of pressure off of his club this season, according to midfielder Gareth Barry.

“We’ve got an experienced team, an experienced manager, I’m confident we can get the job done,” Barry told The Telegraph.

“He’s [Mancini] taken lot of the pressure off the players, that’s worked really well for us. We’ve really raised our game since a couple of disappointing results.

“It looked like we were running away with it at one point, then at one stage bookies were paying out on Manchester United to have won the title.”

This season, the Italian’s unusual tactics included calling Manchester United a better team than City on multiple occasions.

According to Dictionary.com, reverse psychology is a technique of convincing a person that they will not succeed in hopes that it will spur them to succeed.

For this reason, I consider him the premier reverse psychologist in world football.

Some may not like mind games, but I think it only adds to the emerging rivalry between the two Manchester clubs.

All things considered, City still need to take of business against Mark Hughes’ Queens Park Rangers on Sunday.

“It’s going to be a really hard game,” continued Barry.

“We’re playing a QPR side who still need a point for survival and we need one more big effort from the players.”

Despite Barry’s comments, nobody will fancy QPR to get a result versus City at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, May 13.

The would-be champions have only dropped two points at home this season.

In contrast, the Super Hoops have been awful away from Loftus Road, posting a  3-2-13 away record in the league this season.

Now then, can Mark Hughes get his revenge against his former club and deny City the Premier League title? We shall see.