Friday, 18th March, 2011
Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini has pinpointed the sending off of Mario Balotelli against Dynamo Kyiv last night as the reason his side exited the Europa League. And the striker could be set to pay the price as an infuriated Mancini cast doubt on the Italian’s involvement against Chelsea on Sunday.
Trailing 2-0 from the first leg in the Ukraine, City needed a big performance against Andriy Shevchenko and co. and did not need to be reduced to ten men. However, Balotelli challenged Goran Popov, with his boot clearly too high and the tackle ill-judged, leaving the referee with little option but to hand the striker a red card.
City fought back, scoring through Aleksandar Kolarov, who rifled home a powerful shot from 20 yards out, but with ten men and Dynamo defending, the English side were unable to breach the Ukrainians’ backline again.
"If it stays 11 versus 11, we would probably have scored two or three goals", said Mancini reflecting on City’s exit.
"We deserved another goal. We played a fantastic game with ten players."
And Balotelli’s antics may mean Mancini leaves him out of the trip to Chelsea, with the Italian commenting: "I don’t think he’ll be in the squad. I don’t know if it was a red card or a yellow card, but when you play a game like this you should pay attention."
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