In accepting Sheikh Mansour's offer to replace Mark Hughes as the boss of the world's richest club, the Italian presumably thought life would be a breeze.

All the money he wants, all the best players. The trophies, the plaudits.

To amend a popular advert - "It does exactly what it doesn't say on the tin."

Mancini knew he would be dealing with a few egos.

After all, the 46-year-old threw a few strops in his own playing days, when he was a Serie A star.

He can barely have expected them to come with such regularity.

Craig Bellamy, Emmanuel Adebayor, Carlos Tevez, Mario Balotelli. Four strikers whose talent would attract any manager. Four strikers whose temperaments cause Mancini so many headaches he must need a constant supply of aspirin.

Yet, after delivering a third-place finish last season and ending a 35-year trophy drought, Mancini must pick a way through the mess to create a team that can do better.

And that brings us to the second part of his maddening summer.

Either ignoring UEFA's financial fair play rules or simply not realising they were about to be implemented, Mancini ended last season calling for more investment from Sheikh Mansour.

It seems a bit harsh considering the Abu Dhabi-based oil magnate has already ploughed in excess of £1billion into the club.

However, Mancini felt there were issues to be addressed. And unfortunately, as City ended their summer tour of the United States, he still did.

"Maybe I can be disappointed about that," he said.

"Manchester United bought three players and they all did pre-season with the team.

"For a team like us it is important to move quickly, before the end of the season.

"If you do that, you have no problem in June and July. You have the players for pre-season and this is really important.

"If you don't have a player then you lose 20 or 30 days."

Mancini was presumably meaning Sergio Aguero, whom he can only hope does not bring him as much stress as his other frontmen, and Samir Nasri, for whom City moved at the start of the summer, only for Arsenal to cling desperately onto their man.

Yet again though, the summer has been all about Tevez, whose status as hero to the City support for his industrious and effective performances, quite apart from the fact he left Manchester United to join them, is starting to fade.

The problem for Mancini is that without his talisman, exactly how good are City?

He spent £27million on Edin Dzeko but the Bosnian has rarely caught the eye. Balotelli is brilliant one minute, bonkers the next, Bellamy and Adebayor consigned to the scrapheap.

If Tevez leaves, either during this transfer window or the next, how would Mancini replace him?

"Carlos is a very important player," said Mancini.

"But he wants to go back to Argentina for his family and we respect his reasons."

In short, Mancini does not know - cannot know - what he will be left with when City open their season against Swansea on August 15 or, more importantly, when the transfer window closes a couple of weeks after that.

It is all very complicated, far more so than has seemed to be the case at Old Trafford, where one man is the king of all he surveys.

"The job of a manager here is different from Italy," he said.

"I prefer the English style because if the manager loses, the manager is sacked. For this I think the manager needs to take every decision.

"If he makes a mistake, he pays for it."