Mancini sets sights on final

ROBERTO MANCINI is convinced Manchester City will be celebrating a place in the Carling Cup final next week if they reach their peak in the two–legged, last–four duel with Manchester United.

Although United go into the most eagerly–awaited derby in years in winning form, while City lost at Everton on Saturday, momentum appears to be with the Blues.

Roque Santa Cruz’s calf injury might have robbed Mancini of a main target man for a month and Patrick Vieira is still sidelined by a similar problem but, in former Red Devil Carlos Tevez, City have a striker on a hot streak.

And with Shaun Wright–Phillips fit and Stephen Ireland on the bench, Mancini is confident his side have all the tools they need.

“We are meeting a big team but if we play well, I think we will go to the final,” he said before tonight’s first leg at Eastlands.

“We have two games and it is important that we play with concentration.”

Mancini has previously spoken of his desire to banish the fact of City’s lack of silverware in recent years — their trophy drought stretches back to the 1976 League Cup final win over Newcastle United. The Italian likes the idea of picking up a cup in his first couple of months as a manager in England.

But he is also a pragmatist: he knows that if City fail to make the Champions League spot demanded by owner Sheikh Mansour, he is likely to be out, whether he has won the Blues a trophy or not.

“I am new in Manchester City, so the trophy is important to me,” he said. “But the same is true for the players and the club because when you start to win trophies, you change your mentality.”


Neville: United have nothing to prove

GARY NEVILLE insists Manchester United have nothing to prove at Eastlands tonight.

United make the short journey across town for the Carling Cup semi–final first–leg knowing neighbours City are intent on knocking them off their perch, just as Sir Alex Ferguson did to Liverpool when he came south from Scotland in 1986.

Victory alone would not achieve that. But it would be a significant statement of intent at a time when United’s £500million bond issue has laid bare all kinds of doomsday scenarios and brought the more militant members of their support back to the fore once more.

“I don’t see the game as an opportunity to reassert our dominance over City,” he said.

“We are quite comfortable with where we are. We are second in the league, we’re in the Carling Cup semi–final and we’re in the second phase of the Champions League.”