Roberto Mancini admits his Man City have a problem: scoring goals

Dec 27, 2012
Roberto Mancini admits his Man City have a problem: scoring goals
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini conceded that he has a "big problem" after his team failed to score in their 1-0 loss at Sunderland. Reigning champions City missed quite a few good opportunities at the Stadium of Light, but failed to find the net and they slipped seven points behind Manchester United in the title race as a result. "It is impossible that our strikers didn't score," said Mancini. "It is a big problem at this moment. We are too soft in attack and too soft when we have chances and shoot." City have scored 34 goals in 19 matches in the Premier League this season, no less than 14 fewer than Manchester United, who beat Newcastle 4-3 on Boxing Day. Moreover, they have scored just 12 goals in nine away games, while United bagged 22 goals from 10 games on the road. Sergio Aguero, Yaya Toure, David Silva and Edin Dzeko were all denied by Sunderland goalkeeper Simon Mignolet. "We didn't deserve to lose. We dominated, so I don't know how it is possible that we lost this game," said Mancini. "Last year, we scored one, two, three goals every game. Now when we have chances, we are too soft and this is not good. We should be very strong when we have chances, sometimes we take one extra touch and maybe think 'Okay, we will score next time.' But football is not like that. We have a fantastic attitude because we want to win right up until the last second but we can't recover every game. We need to score before that, we had five or six chances in the first half. It's incredible." Despite City falling seven points behind United at the halfway mark of the season, Mancini still believes his side can defend their title. "United score a lot of goals, but they also concede more than us," he said. "It depends on us because the season is long and we can recover, no problem, but we need to change something in our team because we cannot continue like this." Man City travel to meet Norwich on Saturday in their next Premier League match, here are the odds for that game from Bet365: Norwich win - 5/1 Draw - 16/5 Man City win - 8/15
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