Mancini on..... West Ham United

  • by Staff Writer No.2
  • Sunday, 4th November 2012

Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini quietly muses on his side's 0-0 draw at the Boleyn this weekend....

Roberto was the draw a fair result?

No. When you have 65% of the possession, 22 shots on goal maybe you deserve to win and we were missing four incredible chances to score. I am happy for the performance - we played well. I am happy for the chances we missed.

It must have been a frustrating afternoon watching so much possession..

Yes when you're playing well and missing incredible chances it can be frustrating. The players are like me. But it's football. If you don't score you can't win.

Do you see that as two points dropped today then?

Yeah [pause] we lost two points.

Are you finding it a lot harder defending the title? They always say that it's harder to win it again than to win it the first time. Are you finding that the opposition are defending harder, stronger?

I think that when you win the title yje yearafter is more difficult. We had some problems with injuries to important players in the first two matches. This was the biggest problem we had. We've improved our defensive face but we need to score like last year. We need to work on this.

Do you think you needed to play a bit quicker today? Going forward?

Yes sometimes we need this. But three or four chances were incredible.

Mario [Balotelli] must be very frustrated. I mean he cannot seem to find the net can he?

I think all the players played at 100% All the players wanted to win the game. If you don't score you can't win. West Ham defended very well.

Is Joleon Lescott injured

Yes he's injured. It's his back. Will he be available for the Ajax game? No.

If Ajax were watching you tonight what would they be thinking?

It's not important!

You could be out of the Champions' League next week

Yeah . We don't have [a] good chance to go through in the Champions' League because we lost two important games. It's important we finish the group stage well then after...

What the Ajax team think is not important. What the players think is important.

What were you thinking to yourself while you were sitting on your own before the players came out after half time?

Nothing. I'd spoken with the players for three or four minutes and finished!

How is James Milner?

Milner had a problem in the warm up I think it will be difficult for Tuesday.

Did you say anything to Balotelli at half time after those two very obvious missed chances?

He's a footballer. If a player like Balotelli has a chance like today he should score. When you are a top player if you have a chance you should score. I don't think that he didn't want to score!

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