The English champions possess a vast array of attacking riches in Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tevez, Mario Balotelli and Edin Dzeko but the expensively assembled quartet have scored only 19 goals between them so far.

In contrast Manchester United's Robin van Persie, who City tried to sign during the summer, has 10 goals already this season and Mancini wants more from his strikers - starting with their crunch clash with United on Sunday.
    
"It's always the case that you can have one striker in a difficult spell during the season," he told reporters.

"Usually, when you have four strikers, two or three of them are not scoring but one is.

"But at the moment we have four strikers who can't score.

"This can change maybe on Sunday and after that it will be OK. But we need to work more.

"Our season depends on our strikers. If we start to score like last year we will have a big chance."