Mancini hails ´important´ win

Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini praised his squad after they rebounded from a loss to Everton with a 3-1 win over Newcastle.

The Eastlands club responded in the best possible way to their shock 2-1 loss at home to Everton in the English Premier League on Monday by streaking to a 2-0 lead at St James’ Park after just five minutes.

A horrible blunder by goalkeeper Tim Krul handed Gareth Barry the opener in the second minute before talismanic front man Carlos Tevez doubled their advantage three minutes later.

Newcastle gun Andy Carroll pulled one back for the hosts, but Tevez scored his second nine minutes from full time thanks to a fortunate deflection from Fabricio Coloccini to seal the win and move City into outright second in the league.

Mancini said securing the three points in front of a vocal Newcastle support was vital for his men.

“I think we started the game very well, scoring two goals,” Mancini told Sky Sports.

“Newcastle made it very difficult. They are a strong team and the atmosphere here is good.”

“I think it’s difficult for everyone to play against Carroll but I think our defenders did very well.”

“I think that it’s important to cope when you are under pressure and Newcastle put us under pressure from 20-25 minutes.”

“But in the end, it was important that we won this game.”

Mancini said he was delighted with the form of Tevez after the drama of the Argentinean’s transfer request was laid to rest, but was keen to praise the efforts of the whole squad.

“I’m happy because he scored two important goals but I can’t mention just one player today. I think all players played a fantastic game and I think James Milner, in particular, played very well,” he said.

Mancini predicted he would freshen up the squad before Tuesday’s home clash with Aston Villa.

“We must recover because we play again in 48 hours and it’s not easy to do that – I think there will be some changes for that game.”

Newcastle manager Alan Pardew lamented Krul’s error and some slack defending that allowed Tevez in for the second goal, insisting his side could not fight their way out of the hole they had dug.

“The start has cost us the game,” Pardew told Sky Sports. “There were two big errors.”

“It’s something we’ve focused on – not to make errors in the last third – and we’ve come up with two real howlers.”

“That put us on the back foot but the response from the team, from the goalie up to the centre-forward, was outstanding after that.”

“We stood on Man City man-for-man and we’ve given them a good old game today. At 2-1, when we got the goal, we thought there could be something special on here.”

“I thought we missed a couple of chances at that stage and unfortunately for us, they get a bit of a flukey goal.”