Mancini silent on Milan Tevez interest

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has refused to discuss the issue of Carlos Tevez at his weekly press briefing ahead of Sunday’s Premier League encounter with Liverpool.

Tevez’s advisor Kia Joorabchian is known to have met AC Milan officials in the hope of thrashing out a permanent transfer for the wantaway striker, who is currently not training with City, but for no reason that has been explained.

If City received an appropriate offer they would be willing to let Tevez leave, if the deal was permanent, rather than a loan.

However, Mancini was not willing to discuss it this morning.

“I do not want to speak about Carlos Tevez,” said Mancini. “I will answer no questions about him.”

Mancini was more happy to discuss his side's hopes of reaching the Champions League knockout phase in the wake of their 2-1 defeat to Napoli on Tuesday.

City must beat Bayern Munich in their final qualifying game in a fortnight and hope currently pointless Villarreal manage to avoid defeat to Napoli at the same time.

Mancini does not believe that is a forlorn hope.

However, he is of the opinion City have no chance of winning the tournament this season.

“We hope we can stay in the Champions League,” he said.

“We hope we can beat Bayern Munich and Villarreal can get a draw with Napoli.

“But we should be realistic. I do not think we have a team to win the Champions League this season.

“Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Inter Milan all have more experience than us.”

In team news, Mario Balotelli has recovered from a fever ahead of Sunday’s Barclays Premier League trip to Liverpool.

The Italian was sick during Tuesday’s Champions League defeat at Napoli but scored City’s goal and played the full 90 minutes.

City have no other injury concerns following their trip to Italy but Tevez remains out of the first-team picture.

Provisional squad: Hart, Pantilimon, Richards, Zabaleta, Kompany, Lescott, K Toure, Savic, Clichy, Kolarov, Nasri, Milner, Barry, De Jong, Y Toure, Johnson, Silva, Balotelli, Aguero, Dzeko.