Mancini down to bare bones

MANCHESTER CITY manager Roberto Mancini has raised the possibility of the world’s richest club not being able to fill their bench for Sunday’s mouthwatering FA Cup tie with Manchester United.

Already without Gareth Barry through suspension, with Mario Balotelli deemed “unlikely” to recover from an ankle injury sustained in training last week and Samir Nasri trying to shake off an illness, Mancini always knew his resources would be depleted.

So he could have done without the double whammy of losing African Cup of Nations-bound Yaya and Kolo Toure after his plea to keep the pair until after the United game was rejected by Ivory Coast coach Francois Zahoui.

So, instead of facing Alex Ferguson’s men, the Toures will be flying from Paris, where they are required for a team meeting tomorrow, to Abu Dhabi for a two-week training camp ahead of the tournament, jointly held in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

“For Sunday we have 17 players,” he said. “I don’t think we will have 18.

It leaves Mancini with just James Milner and Nigel de Jong available to face United from his pool of orthodox midfielders, although that could be supplemented by Pablo Zabaleta, or even Nasri should he recover in time.

“I always said we could have a problem in January,” said Mancini. Yaya is an important player for us. Kolo is different because we have eight defenders and no injuries.

“It is in midfield where we have a big problem.”

And that offers Manchester United manager Ferguson cause for hope. He had some head scratching to do as his side aims to avoid losing three successive games for the first time in almost 11 years.

But that is the fate which awaits them on Sunday if Ferguson cannot cajole a better performance out of his injury-hit team than they produced at Newcastle on Wednesday night.

Six goals in three games demanded Dimitar Berbatov be picked on Tyneside, but his lacklustre contribution now makes an equally forceful case for his omission.

Ferguson cited a crucial first-half miss by Wayne Rooney as the turning point against Newcastle and the striker, fresh from being disciplined over an ill-advised St Stephen’s Day night out, was substituted after 74 minutes.

However, Rooney will surely keep his place alongside either Danny Welbeck, who has one goal since October, or Javier Hernandez — none since November — or both.

But United’s midfield resources have been stretched when it appeared they were painfully thin to start with.

Rooney and Phil Jones have been used at times, with Giggs a more obvious alternative, along with Park Ji-sung and Michael Carrick.

Rafael’s presence in United’s engine room for the shock loss to Blackburn was most alarming though, giving rise to yet more speculation about a transfer window move for Wesley Sneijder.