Content O’Neill doesn’t begrudge nouveau riche City

SUNDERLAND boss Martin O’Neill will head into battle with his Manchester City counterpart Roberto Mancini insisting he is not jealous of the Italian’s mammoth spending power.

The 59-year-old Irishman will welcome Mancini to the Stadium of Light tomorrow hoping to put a further dent in City’s Barclays Premier League title ambitions following their 0-0 St Stephen’s Day draw at West Brom.

O’Neill, who had a brief — and largely unsuccessful, by his standards — spell as a player at Maine Road, will attempt to prepare his injury-hit side for a backlash from a club whose squad is packed with expensively-acquired, top international players.

However, he has no problem with the cash-rich pretenders to Manchester United’s crown flexing financial muscle.

He said: “It’s just part of the game. If you drop back to Chelsea a number of years ago, Chelsea had the spending power behind them and it yielded them the Premier League, they went very, very close in the Champions League a couple of times, and it proved worthwhile.

“Also, they had a fantastic manager in Jose Mourinho at the time, and Carlo Ancelotti carried that on last season.

“But City have taken it even to another level at the moment, and really, while these are the rules applying to the game, good luck to them.”

Asked if City are genuine title contenders, O’Neill said: “Of course, absolutely, and I think they have shown that.

“They are a really, really top quality side and they have got strength in depth to go with it, which is very, very important these days.”

Such is the depth of City’s squad, Gareth Barry and James Milner, mainstays of O’Neill’s Aston Villa team, are not even guaranteed first-team football. The Black Cats manager said: “It says it all.”

By contrast, the squad O’Neill inherited from Steve Bruce has been depleted by the rigours of the holiday programme with full-back Phil Bardsley and central defender Titus Bramble doubts for Sunday’s game with thigh and Achilles injuries respectively. With Michael Turner also sidelined and Kieran Richardson fighting illness, defensive resources are thin, and the likes of forgotten man Matt Kilgallon may get his chance. O’Neill said: “There’s an opportunity for some of the players now so that will be something I will look at.”