City’s siege mentality growing

Fulham 1 Manchester City 2

City started slowly and left it late to win at Fulham, the victory coming after Edin Dzeko took advantage of a defensive mistake by John Arne Riise to score the winning goal with effectively his first touch of the game, in the 87th minute.

Sergio Aguero had got them back into the game shortly before half-time, equalising Mladen Petric’s 10th-minute opener for Fulham from the penalty spot, a sore point for Mancini and his players.

Certainly Riise went down easily under the challenge of Pablo Zabaleta, on what was the margin of the penalty area, but Mark Halsey’s decision was hardly enough to justify the near paranoid demeanour of Mancini afterwards.

The Italian does not look a happy man, and his body language and words suggests the world is against him and his team. No wonder. Four games without victory before this one, no clean sheets in nine games so far, and four points off pacesetters Chelsea — the omens are not good.

“There were a lot of mistakes in the past four games. We accept this, but we’re not happy. We can do nothing, only continue to play.”

He bemoaned Peter Crouch’s goal in the game against Stoke, and penalty decisions last week against Arsenal and on Saturday.

“Against Stoke it was one goal at the end because Crouch stopped the ball with his hand and scored. Against Arsenal we should have had a penalty. Today was a penalty that was not a penalty.”

Aguero went further, hinting that English referees penalise foreign players more than homegrown players: “Yes, there is a little bit of privilege with players who come from this country. But that is normal, and the referee’s job is to know who is tricking him and who is not.

“Here in England, there are almost as many foreign players as English players and it’s not right that some have a privilege that others don’t.”

His conspiracy theory falls down against Fulham, however, who have the most multinational side in the Premier League. Martin Jol has already used players from 14 countries, and although Dimitar Berbatov was absent with injury, another new signing showed plenty of goal threat. Petric scored twice on his debut on the opening day, before getting injured. He has yet to play with Berbatov but thinks they could combine well.

“Yes of course. He is a very good attacking player, and in the future we can cause trouble for other teams,” said the Croatian.

Fulham failed to capitalise on his opening goal because he and others spurned chances while Fulham were on top in the opening half-hour, and gradually allowed City to get their expensive attacking force into the game.

“I think we cannot be really happy with our game in the second half. We were too deep, and they had a lot of possession, so we have to be braver. We defended very well but in the end it was defeat and disappointment.”

City now face Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League, and having lost to Real Madrid in the previous game, know they need to win. Aguero certainly wants to do well in Europe as well as at home.

“The club has made a big investment in a lot of players and now City is one of the best known teams in the world. We are here to win titles, whether the Champions League or Premiership.

“We have to do well in the Premier League and then try to do as well as we can in Europe, as well as the FA Cup.

“We will approach each one with as much seriousness as the others. A Champions League game is as important as a Premier League game: you have to do all you can to win both.”

FULHAM 4-3-3: Schwarzer 8; Riether 6, Hughes 7, Hangeland 7, Riise 6; Duff 6, Baird 7, Sidwell 7; Ruiz 6, Petric 7, Rodallega 6.

Subs for Fulham: Kacaniklic (6) for Petric (65), Karagounis (6) for Baird (81).

MAN CITY 4-4-2: Hart 7; Zabaleta 7, Nastasic 6, Kompany 6, Clichy 7; Garcia 7, Toure 7, Barry 6, Silva 7, Tevez 6 Aguero 8

Subs for Man City: Balotelli (7) for Tevez (65), Nasri (6) for Barry (76), Dzeko for Garcia (86)

Ref: Mark Halsey.