Mancini wants top-four finish this season

New Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini is looking for a top-four finish this season.

Mancini who replaced Mark Hughes as City Manager on Monday said: “At this moment my target is the top four,” Mancini put pen to paper on a three-and-a-half year deal to keep him at the club until 2013.

Mark Hughes got the sack even though City are through to the Carling Cup semi-finals, lying in sixth place in the Premership table and have only lost two league games all season. But City’s owners felt that after a big summer spending campaign on players like Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor and Gareth Barry the club had not made sufficient progress for their investment.

Roberto Mancini is confident he can achieve great things at Club starting with a top-four finish this season and the Premership title next season. Mancini also wants unsettled Brazilian star Robinho to be part of City’s plans for honours. Robinho has been widely linked with a move to Barcelona but Mancini is keen to keep the player, he said: “Robinho is a fantastic player but for a big player like him, it is important to make the history of a club,” stated Mancini. “I played at Sampdoria for 15 years. I wrote the history. It is important. Robinho can do that here.”