Mancini keeps lid on City excitement

Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini played down the hype surrounding his team after they crushed Tottenham 5-1 at White Hart Lane.

City cruised to their third win from as many Premier League games with forward Edin Dzeko finding the net four times in a world-class performance.

But Mancini was not getting carried away with the big win against a team expected to contend for European honours this campaign.

“I think this season is very, very long. It was important that we started the season very well,” he told ESPN.

“Now we have lots of players going off to play for their national team for 10 days, so we can’t see all the players for about 10 days, so (the) next game will probably be very hard because now everyone thinks we can score three of four in every match, but that is not possible.”

“At the moment I think we have to work to play like today and at the end of the season we will see what we have achieved.”

New signing Samir Nasri started in his debut appearance and set up three goals as part of a potent front quartet, also featuring Dzeko, in-form midfielder David Silva and forward Sergio Aguero.

Dzeko netted just twice in 15 league appearances to finish last season after joining City in January, but Mancini said he was always confident the Bosnian would rediscover his knack of scoring goals.

“I was sure that Edin could score a lot of goals this season because he now knows the Premier League very well,” Mancini said of the 25-year-old, who took his tally to six goals from three matches.

“Before now, he was always scoring at Wolfsburg and has scored wherever he has played.”

Tottenham defender Younes Kaboul had pulled it back to 4-1 on 68 minutes but the north Londoners were never in the game after Dzeko struck twice in the first half.

Manager Harry Redknapp rued his side’s slow start, but paid tribute to City’s potency in attack.

“Once you get a couple of goals down from a good side like that it’s really difficult, they’re full of quality there’s no doubt about that,” the Tottenham boss said.

“They’ve got fantastic forward players, they’re going to be difficult for anyone to contain them for 90 minutes.”

“They’ve got players with goals in them – you’ve only got to look at them.”