´Demoralised´ Shay Given gets loan option: Mancini

Manchester City manager Robert Mancini insists he will allow goalkeeper Shay Given to leave the club on loan in January.

The Republic of Ireland international is now seen as cover for Joe Hart and has not played all season, once again missing out in Sunday’s 2-0 win at Wigan.

Given was linked with moves to Fulham, Celtic and Arsenal before the transfer window closed last month but remained at Eastlands.

Although Mancini has hinted he could feature in the League Cup against West Brom on Wednesday, Given has not even started Europa League matches.

That has led to him admitting he is “very, very frustrated” and that his situation is “demoralising”.

He said: “I know it doesn’t matter what I do on the training pitch, I won’t be playing at the weekend. If I’m flying around like Clark Kent in goals, I still won’t play on Saturday.”

Mancini insists he is sympathetic to Given’s plight and will let him leave when the transfer window opens if he feels the same way in three months.

The Manchester City manager said: “I have a lot of respect for Shay. I told him this situation before the transfer market finished.

“?I told him ‘Shay you can chose, I hope you stay here but this is the situation for this moment but I respect your decision, if you want to leave you can’.

“He decided to stay here and until January he must stay here. I understand his situation but I need him to stay here with his head 100 percent on the work. I respect him because I played football.

“I understand if a player doesn’t play it’s difficult. If he decided to leave, he could have left one month ago and now he must wait until January.

“If he wants to leave I respect his decision because he is a fantastic man and a fantastic goalkeeper.”

Mancini has also played down reports of a training ground row with striker Emmanuel Adebayor.

He joked: “We fought in the changing room for an hour and you can see there are no marks on my face so I won!”

City’s 2-0 victory over Wigan – their first-ever victory at the DW Stadium – moved them into the Champions League places.

Carlos Tevez opened the scoring and then set up Yaya Toure for the midfielder’s first goal since arriving from Barcelona in the summer.

Mancini feels that Tevez is thriving under the responsibility of the City captaincy but has told his players they should not rely on the Argentina forward.

He said: “Carlos is there for this. He is there to score a goal, this is important.

“I’m very happy for him because in this moment he isn’t in 100 percent on form but this goal can help him.

“He didn’t work for a month after the World Cup but I’m happy because he scored. I think the captaincy is a good thing for him. He is an important player who can improve as captain and help the team more.

“If we want to win something we must understand that we can play without Carlos, Yaya and other players. We must be a good team without these players or we will not improve.”

Wigan have lost three of their first four homematches and Roberto Martinez claims their slack defending is undermining them.

He said: “We have showed we can defend well and have good concentration so the errors are something we need to eradicate.

“We just leave ourselves a mountain to climb in games.

“There were some areas that we did certain things well, but from time to time we come up with this softness in our defensive play and it really lets us down and puts the games out of our reach.”