Roberto Mancini baffled by Manchester City's 'worst performance'

Posted Monday, November 01, 2010 by theguardian.com

Roberto Mancini baffled by Manchester City's 'worst performance'
Roberto Mancini said playing two strikers, Emmanuel Adebayor and Mario Balotelli, was no excuse for the 2-1 defeat.

Roberto Mancini was baffled by Manchester City's defeat and has admitted that if he cannot figure out what went wrong then their title ambitions are doomed.

This was City's second successive defeat and alarmed Mancini much more than the first, since his players had performed well during the 3-0 loss to Arsenal after contesting most of the match with 10 men following Dedryck Boyata's early red card. Even though things started more promisingly against Wolves as City took the lead, the game degenerated into what Mancini branded the worst performance since he was appointed last December.

With less than two weeks to go before a hotly anticipated Manchester derby, Mancini is urgently seeking an explanation. "For me it was impossible that we played like we did in the second half," the Italian said. "That was the worst we have played since I've been manager. I told them at half-time that if we started to play properly we could win the game but we didn't play. It was a very strange situation."

Mancini suggested they betrayed the signs of a side fearing relegation rather than one driven by the search for glory. "If you are trying to change the mentality of a team that has not won for a long time then something like this [performance] can happen, but we started the season very well so this is very strange. I need to speak to the players."

It is more than eight months since City won a league game without at least one goal from Carlos Tevez but Mancini rejected the idea that his team rely too heavily on the Argentinian, who missed the Wolves match through injury. "Carlos is an important player for us but we can't think that without him we can't win, that is impossible. We have a strong team, we must win without Carlos Tevez too."

Tevez usually plays as a lone striker and in his absence Mancini opted to deploy Emmanuel Adebayor and £24m summer signing Mario Balotelli up front together. He speculated that the change had unsettled the side and said that, if so, his players need to become more adaptable.

"Maybe it could be this change that made us lose our balance. But we work at different formations. To win titles you need to be able to play different ways against different opponents. It is important for me to understand what mistakes we made. This is a very important moment for us: we must understand." Mancini says he expects Chelsea to be crowned champions but has not abandoned hope of thwarting them. "For me Chelsea will win the league. But the season is very long and a lot of things can change."