Mancini: Our luck will change

ROBERTO MANCINI admitted his concerns over Manchester City’s title credentials after they stumbled to a shock defeat at Sunderland.

An injury-time winner from Ji Dong-won’s sealed an unlikely 1-0 victory for Martin O’Neill’s side, at the same time handing the initiative back to champions Manchester United.

Alex Ferguson’s side endured an equally surprise 3-2 home setback to lowly Blackburn, a result matched by City, who have taken one point from the last six to lead only on goal difference from their cross city rivals thanks to South Korean Ji’s winner, which replays showed to be marginally offside.

Mancini’s men host Liverpool tomorrow, and the Italian insists they must bounce back immediately after their untimely blip. He said: “We have another game in 48 hours and we need to recover. I don’t think it will be difficult to pick the players up for the Liverpool game.

“We’ve had a bit of bad luck, but things can soon change. The players understand we’ve missed an important opportunity, but it’s vital they switch on for the next game now. We’ve got 45 points and scored 53 goals. We need another 45 points in the second half of the season.”

Mancini rested Mario Balotelli to protect an ankle injury, as the visitors failed to convert a string of chances, and the manager added: “The Sunderland goal was offside, but I’ve not been to see the referee about it. If you’re going to be a top team, you can’t concede a goal like the one we did. In the second-half we had I don’t know how many chances to score but sometimes in these situations you don’t end up winning.

“We were so-so in the first-half but in the second we did very well. In the last two games, we’ve made a lot of chances but you can’t always score three or four goals every game. I don’t know how many chances we had, but I’m not worried about not scoring in the last couple of games. What I’m worried about is having players on the pitch who understand the situation when we’re vulnerable to a counter-attack. We need to improve on this.”

Sunderland continued their revival under O’Neill to climb to 13th. The Irishman admitted the pressure was on his side after Blackburn’s unexpected win at Old Trafford, and he added: “I wasn’t too pleased with the other results, especially with Blackburn winning.”