City take stock

appear to have been killed off.  He can trace it all the way back to the summer.
City may have spent £52 million on six players between June and August.

But they were not Mancini’s first-choice buys and the champions are paying the price.
Their summer mess was laid bare at St Mary’s on Saturday as Mauricio Pochettino’s Southampton ripped them to shreds.

Of  City’s most recent recruits, only £12million Serb Matija Nastasic has impressed, but he was out injured here.

That left Javi Garcia, a £16m buy from Benfica, to be used as a makeshift centre-back and the Spaniard was out of his depth.

The young English talents of Jack Rodwell and Scott Sinclair — a combined £21m — were unused subs. And £3m defender Maicon was brought on as a baffling replacement for David Silva when City were trailing 3-1.

Having sold Mario Balotelli to AC Milan last month, and with Carlos Tevez missing the trip to St Mary’s for personal reasons, all of a sudden City look lightweight up front.

Not only are they 10 points worse off than at the same stage last season, they are also 19 goals shy. Mancini missed top target Robin van Persie in the summer.

The Dutchman went to United instead — and his 19 goals have fired the Red Devils TWELVE points clear of their neighbours.

Mancini must know his job is on the line should his side not win a trophy this season.
And that makes this weekend’s FA Cup fifth-round tie with Leeds increasingly vital.

Mancini said: “For a team like us which has won the title, won the FA Cup, and won the Charity Shield after 38 years, it’s normal the year after as champions could be difficult.

“But probably because we did some mistakes in the summer and didn’t improve our team. But now we have good players and we shouldn’t do a match like this. We have the FA Cup and this season is not finished.”

Mancini claimed that just two of his players turned up for the 90-minute horror show on the South Coast. But even that appeared to be kind. Mancini can cling on to the fact that he had more than three times as many players away on international duty in midweek than Saints.

The Italian added: “I think we had big problems because we had 15 players who came back on Thursday night and Friday from Qatar, Chile, from everywhere.

“This was the big problem this week. In the end, we did a really bad performance and for this I’m disappointed.”  — The Sun.