Mancini pressured!!

ROBERTO MANCINI has been told Manchester City must maintain their title push in the new year.

And the City boss is clear fourth place and a Champions League spot is the minimum required this season.
Chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak believes that the squad is strong enough to achieve both targets even without any further investment this January.
Khaldoon was in Manchester this week to talk over his plans after overseeing a complete overhaul of the City squad and management structure over the last 12 months.
He believes City have possibly the strongest squad in the country.
All Khaldoon's future planning is based on getting into the Champions League, and all the extra revenue and exposure to new commercial opportunities that will bring.
He believes that as long as they stay outside that elite group of clubs in Europe, City will struggle to establish the foothold he wants in the game.
Khaldoon fully supports Mancini and believes he has the right boss to achieve those aims a year after he sacked Mark Hughes and gave the Italian the job.
But the pressure is clearly on Mancini to meet the targets that have been set.
Mancini was handed £127million to spend last summer, taking owner Sheikh Mansour's total spending on players to around £350m.
Khaldoon was at Eastlands on Monday when City lost 2-1 to Everton - blowing the chance to go top at Christmas for the first time in 81 years.
They currently lie third, two points behind leaders Manchester United but five ahead of fifth-placed Tottenham.
Khaldoon also wants to see an improvement in City's successful academy.
Since 1998 it has produced 30 players who have gone on to play first-team football for the club - including England stars Micah Richards and Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Yet Khaldoon believes they should be producing players like Barcelona have worth £30m or more, or even a Lionel Messi.
Meanwhile, striker Mario Balotelli who limped out of Monday night's match with an ankle injury, will be fit for City's tie at Newcastle on Boxing Day.