Newcastle United 1-3 Manchester City
Manchester United 3-1 Sunderland
Coaches react:
Sir Alex laments missed chances:
“A lot of our football was fantastic and some of our interchange play was terrific,” Sir Alex told MUTV. “I don’t know if we relaxed when we went 3-0 up or if Sunderland got a grip of the game, but towards the end they played very well and could have scored two or three goals.
“Some of our play was fantastic and we should’ve scored more. Tom Cleverley’s goal was a marvellous piece of interchange play, a first time finish and a really superb goal which epitomised the way we were playing at that point. I’d no complaints for an hour and it was wonderful to watch.
“We don’t pick out Robin van Persie’s runs as well as we should – his movement is great and he kept them on the back foot. But Wayne could’ve scored three of four goals, he hit the bar and missed two or three chances in the first half. But he got one which is important as it keeps his run going.”
Roberto Mancini warned his team that they need to start converting more chances
“All the players played well, I think it could have been five, six or seven as we missed so many chances,” he said.
“When you’re missing so many chances like we did in the first half then if they score they re-open the game like this afternoon but after we were strong because we scored another goal and had chances for more.
“It was like last year at times today, because we created so many chances to score.”
Although Robin van Persie’s last minute free-kick ended City’s unbeaten record last week, Mancini still believes that second 45 minutes was the best he’d seen this season from his team.
“Today was difficult because clearly after the United defeat, we needed to start quickly but I thought the guys were very, very good today,” he declared.
“The best football we’ve played this season was against United in the second half because if you keep a team like that in their own half for 45 minutes, you played a very good game.”
Mancini opted to field Sergio Aguero and Carlos Tevez as his frontmen and, although they won the 13th consecutive game that they’ve started together, the City chief refused to rule out Edin Dzeko or Mario Balotelli from starting their next match against Reading
“Aguero and Tevez are perfect because they play so well together but we have Edin to come in as well and Mario,” Mancini stated.
“Mario has a future – he is just at home only because he needs to work, if he had deserved to play because he had worked well then he would have done like all of the other players.“
