ROBERTO Mancini last night insisted his job was not in jeopardy and vowed to turn round Manchester City’s fortunes after seeing his expensive stars crash to a third successive defeat here.
Roberto Mancini insisted his job was safe after Manchester City lost to Lech Poznan
At Anfield, a Steven Gerrard second-half hat-trick, including a penalty, eased the pressure on Roy Hodgson as Liverpool defeated Napoli 3-1.
City’s 3-1 Europa League defeat to Lech Poznan followed Premier League setbacks to Arsenal and Wolves, but Mancini insists he retains the backing of his owners and his players. He even claimed some of the English media are against him because he is Italian.
After seeing two late goals give the Polish side a shock win, he said: “The club have asked me to qualify for next season’s Champions League and we are going well for that. Why should I worry about
being fired? This does not exist. To say the team are against me is
lies, all rubbish.
“There were some hard discussions with some players, but the team follows me and results are arriving.
“Some
of the media rage on at us because City are headed by an Italian. I am
sorry to say this, but the English are nationalists when it comes to
football.”
Emmanuel Adebayor’s equaliser looked
like earning City a point, but a freak goal by Manuel Arboleda and a
stoppage-time strike from substitute Mateusz Mozdzen stunned Mancini.
He
added: “I’m disappointed because we didn’t deserve to lose. Everything
was against us. We are very unlucky. We played well and had a lot of
chances to score. It was very strange. If we played the game 100 times
we would win 90 of them.
“We lost the last three games, but tonight we didn’t deserve to lose. Sometimes you play well and deserve to score.
“I was happy with the players. They played a good game and that’s important.”
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