Mancini plays down Hughes duel

Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini has dismissed suggestions of a duel with Mark Hughes as he prepares to come face-to-face with his predecessor in Sunday's trip to Fulham.

Mancini's side take on Hughes's Fulham at Craven Cottage roughly 11 months after the Italian replaced the Welshman as manager at Eastlands.

Yet Mancini has played down talk of Sunday's meeting being a grudge match between the past and present City managers.

"I don't know if Mark Hughes has a point to prove, but this is Fulham against Manchester City not Mancini against Hughes," Mancini said.

"Maybe it means more, I don't know. But I am sure he tries always to win."

Mancini, who continues to divide opinion, is convinced that his mega-rich side remain on the right path ahead of Sunday's game.

And Mancini says they will prove it by clinching a top-four finish and end the club's long wait for silverware.

"We are in fourth position, three points behind Manchester United but we must check at the end of the season," said Mancini.

"At the end of the season I think we will get into the Champions League and probably we will win something. This is my opinion because I believe we have improved a lot."

It won't be easy for Mancini though as he locks horns with Hughes, might be forgiven for having extra reason to put one over on his former employers.

When Manchester City's chief executive Garry Cook sacked Hughes as manager 11 months ago, he did so citing "the trajectory of recent results," describing how he'd fallen behind pace for the required target of 70 points by season end.

So it is with a fair slice of irony that Mancini takes his City side to the capital with an almost identical record to Hughes.

That also doesn't take into account the current murmurs of discontent raging among supporters about Mancini's defensive approach, along with the lack of attacking football that might reasonably be expected of a squad assembled for the region of 320 million pounds.

Mancini may just be happy to escape Eastlands given their sorry recent record on home soil.

Their second successive stalemate there against Birmingham last time out ensured their failure to score was extended to over four hours.

To make matters worse, an under-pressure Mancini was jeered having replaced Carlos Tevez with Gareth Barry late on as they searched for that elusive winner.

"I think that we are so disappointed with the draw against Birmingham," Mancini said.

"I'm not worried because I know football and we had seven chances to score in the second half.

"With all the problems we have, and all these players we want to sell, and all these players we want to buy, we are only six points behind Chelsea. I think that is a good position for us."

Mancini must wait and see what his options are after counting the cost of this week's international break.

With his players having been scattered far and wide across the globe with their national sides, the Italian is allowing as much time as possible for players to recover.

"It's difficult, but if you have good players, all these players play for national teams," he said.

With Joe Hart set to recover from a back problem that kept him out of England's defeat to France in midweek, the prognosis on fellow Three Lions team-mates Joleon Lescott and Micah Richards was not so positive.

"We must wait because there are the players who come back from their national teams and they are tired," said Mancini.

"Some have some problems, so we must wait.

"At this moment we have a problem with Lescott and Richards. Lescott has a problem with his foot and Richards his ribs. But Joe Hart is getting better."

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