Mancini praises King Kenny of the Kop

Roberto Mancini has praised the managerial abilities of Liverpool’s Kenny Dalglish as he prepares to take his side to Merseyside on Monday.

“Dalglish is a fantastic manager,” said Mancini, according to BBC Sport, “He was an incredible player, I remember him very well. Liverpool are a very strong team, especially when they play at home. They lost two important players in [Javier] Mascherano and [Fernando] Torres but they bought [Luis] Suarez, [Andy] Carroll as well as other good players. It will be a very hard game.”

City are out of the Europa League, but are still battling for a top-four place in the Premier League and face Manchester United in the semi finals of the FA Cup.

“The players are looking fresher,” Mancini added, “We had problems when we played every three days. Now most of the players are available and that is important.”

City impressed in their last home game against Sunderland with a 5-0 win, and Mancini is hoping his team can continue their top goal scoring form.

“All the team played well against Sunderland. To score five goals from five different players was good for us. We played well because the players were rested. Our mentality should be the same whether we are at home or away. We can improve, we can score more goals. Now is the time to start winning more away matches. Every game we play to win but that is not always possible. We have always had a good spirit this year but it has improved a lot. There were times we were really tired because we had a number of injured players. But at this moment things are good. But if we want that to continue we need to keep winning.”