Platt: City can overcome ‘difficult moment’

ASSISTANT manager David Platt believes Manchester City can re-establish their title credentials against Wigan at the DW Stadium on Monday after a run of only one win in five games.

“No-one expected us to continue winning games without having a difficult moment,” said Platt.

“We can’t accelerate the season by four months to see how it is going to turn out.

“But we are still in the Carling Cup semi-final and our players are quite capable of turning the situation around, and 19 clubs would like to be where we are in the championship.

“It is not a bad position to be in — some crisis.”

Platt also launched a passionate defence of manager Roberto Mancini, who became embroiled in a row with Steven Gerrard after Wednesday’s Carling Cup defeat by Liverpool.

Gerrard was upset that, after complaining over Wayne Rooney trying to get Vincent Kompany sent off at the weekend, Mancini should do exactly the same thing when Glen Johnson caught Joleon Lescott with a flying lunge.

Platt insisted Mancini’s actions had been misinterpreted and the City boss was only looking for some consistency from the officials.

“Roberto was not necessarily worried about the two-footed tackle,” he said.

“Live in the game I don’t think it was dangerous. The problem is inconsistency.

“Vinny’s sending off should not have happened. Can you excuse the referee? Yes. He has interpreted something.

“But we feel as though we have been punished twice.

“If Vinny’s is deemed to be reckless and endangering an opponent, that was similar.

“It was a good tackle by Johnson. We think Vincent’s was good as well.”

Wigan boss Roberto Martinez insisted yesterday every two-footed tackle should lead to a red card.

He said: “I do believe that we need to protect the players that we all love and are excited to watch, the only thing you need is consistency and you want to all those challenges being red-carded.

“That’s where the frustration comes in. Two-footed challenges should be red cards, that should be the end of the debate. If you are player and go into a challenge with both feet that should be a red card.

Martinez says City will hardly be weakened by Kompany’s suspension, nor by Yaya and Kolo Toure heading off to the African Nations Cup, and that Mancini’s side should be viewed as title favourites.

He added: “All the big teams can lose two or three players without being weakened and Manchester City are so strong, and they deserve the label of being title favourites because of what they have done in the first half of the season.”