Ominous warning from Mancini

Manchester City’s strike trio of Carlos Tevez, Edin Dzeko and Mario Balotell will only improve, manager Roberto Mancini has warned.

Bosnian striker Dzeko cost the Eastlands club 27 million pounds, but his well-taken brace against Aris Salonika in the Europa League’s round-of-32 indicated that it was a sound investment by the Eastlands club, who outclassed their Greek opponents 3-0 on Thursday.

“I think that he (Dzeko) played well,” Mancini told ESPN.

“He scored two goals, which for him, is very important. It was important that we started very well.”

The expensively-assembled strike force of Tevez, Balotelli and Dzeko started alongside each other for the first time, and Mancini said the trio would only get better with experience of sharing the forward space.

“In the first half (the strikers played) very well. It was the first time (that they played together), I think that they need to play again, but second half when we tired I think we had some problems with the balance of the team.”

Mancini added that City’s round-of-16 opponents, Dynamo Kiev, would pose a threat given their extensive experience within European competition.

“I played against them a lot of times. It’s a big team – one of the best teams in the Ukraine – they play always in the Champions League and they have a lot of experience, so they’ll be a very difficult game,” the Italian said.