Plush Tie:

Big spending Manchester City are ready to mix it with the big guns of European football. Bolstered by the recent acquisitions of Ivorian defensive midfielder Gnégnéri Yaya Touré,[1] European Championship and World Cup winner David Silva, aspiring England midfielder James Milner and precocious Italian forward Mario Balotelli, the Sky Blues are ready to take on Europe – for starters.

Racially abused by Juventus fans when wearing Inter’s shirt Balotelli can look forward to no repeat dose. The choice for the Grand Old Lady’s fans is to comply with UEFA dictates on racism or risk being booted out of the competition. Nevertheless, Juve has a point to prove against English opposition on the pitch after a humiliating 4-1 thrashing at Craven Cottage saw them dumped out of the inaugural Europa League.

Polish outfit Lech Poznan and FC Salzburg make up an intriguing Group A. Meanwhile Roberto Mancini is under no illusions of what is expected from him. “Our ambitions in this competition is to go as far as far as possible,” Life President Bernard Halford told us. “That’s with all four competitions that we’re playing in this year.”

Slacking of expectations won’t be tolerated. “We treat every game with wanting to win and we treat all our opponents with respect and we’re developing a squad which hopefully can challenge on all four fronts that we’re looking for. The manager’s got a good squad where he can rotate players and we just want to do well in all competitions and we want to win something for those wonderful fans of ours.”

Delivery and Commitment:

Halford expects the team to hit the ground running. “We’re hoping the team will start to perform, which it already has at the start of the season,” he says. “We’re hoping that the team will start to perform from now and we want to carry on performing. We’re not thinking that we want to wait three years before we're going to do something. We’ve got the players that we’ve got, who are world class players, so we’re looking to perform immediately.”

Former manager Mark Hughes piled the pressure on his successor, claiming that had he been given the time he would have delivered a top four finish last season. Mancini had to achieve that this season, Hughes claims.  He has a point. Mancini had a wish list and unlike most managers his wishes came true. Among those to arrive for a whopping €32m was Touré Yaya as Gnégnéri is known on his shirt.

Halford wouldn’t single Yaya out as a player to build a team around. “They’re all important,” he insists. “All the players are important. The manager is the person to ask about the players, but from the club point of view, we spent a lot of money on players and all the players are important. We’re not saying: ‘He is more important than somebody else.’ All the players are important. That’s the manager’s domain. He’s picked the players that he wants. The club has got them and we’re looking forward to going from strength to strength.”

Halford wants Manchester City to be part of Africa’s World Cup Legacy. In fact, he’s set his sights wider still. “Well first of all, as a club, we want to become global, which we’re working towards,” he told us. “We’ve got a wonderful marketing team that are working on that at the present time, but I mean our aims as a club in the football are to do well on all fronts and to do well in Europe and then take it on from there.”