Manchester City

The Eastlands outfit drew their first game of the season with Tottenham before hammering Liverpool 3-0 last Monday but they failed to keep up the momentum as Darren Bent’s injury-time penalty made sure all three points remained at the Stadium of Light (Sunderland 12/1 to be relegated).

Emmanuel Adebayor and Yaya Toure missed excellent chances but it was Carlos Tevez who was guilty of the worst miss, blazing over from 12 yards with an empty net ahead of him.

As is so often the case in the Premiership, a team that fails to score when dominating periods of play ends up losing the match – a fact not lost on the City boss.

“Football is very strange,” he said. “We played fantastic football in the first half but if you don’t score, sometimes you can lose these games.

“We had the Carlos chance, but we also had three or four other opportunities.”

Mancini has assembled a world-class squad at the City of Manchester Stadium and is looking to break the dominance of city rivals United and Chelsea at the top of the Premiership, while also battling in the Europa League.

Qualification for next season’s Champions League is thought to be a minimum requirement for the club’s owners, who have already shown that they are not afraid to make changes if things are not going to plan.

Mark Hughes was sacked in December last year with the club still challenging for a European place and the Italian tactician will hope that his strikers are not so profligate in front of goal throughout the rest of the season, or he too might be looking over his shoulder in the New Year.

City are now already five points behind table-topping Chelsea, while Manchester United and Arsenal make up the top three, and Mancini admitted his frustration at letting three points go in a match that seemed destined for a draw.

“I am disappointed because we wanted to win this game,” he added.

“We were good in the first half but in the second half we defended too deep and they put us under a lot of pressure. Every game is difficult and you must play until the last second.”

The north-west club is next in action on September 11, due to the international break, when Sam Allardyce will bring his Blackburn Rovers squad to Eastlands.

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The Reds made hard work of seeing off their dogged opponents at Anfield and only have Ryan Babel’s goal on the stroke of half-time to show for their efforts, with a tricky trip to Turkey to come next week.

Hodgson’s side should have added to their lead in the second half but Joe Cole missed a penalty and plenty of chances went begging, with Lucas, Fernando Torres and debutant Christian Poulsen all guilty of wasting good opportunities.

Afterwards Hodgson, who rested regulars Steven Gerrard, Dirk Kuyt and Glen Johnson in the game, admitted he was disappointed Liverpool could only secure a one-goal lead to take into the second leg and was particularly frustrated at the missed spot-kick.

“I think we probably deserved to win by more but we must blame ourselves,” he said.

“We missed a penalty and if you miss penalties then you can’t blame anyone but yourself.

“We discussed penalties before the game and who would take them, and we’d decided on Joe.”

Hodgson was hoping for at least a second goal to give the Reds a decent cushion but it failed to materialise and now he is well aware they will be tested in Turkey as they aim to book their place in the group stage of the Europa League.

“With the second-half performance we did deserve the second goal that would have made the trip to Turkey much more comfortable.

“Now it won’t be comfortable at all,” he added.

Next up for Liverpool is a Premier League trip to fellow top-four hopefuls Manchester City on Monday night (City 13/10, Liverpool 19/10 to win)

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