Cavani double sinks Manchester City

Two goals from Edinson Cavani saw Napoli overcome Manchester City 2-1 in the Champions League on Tuesday night, putting the English side’s chances of reaching the knockout stages of the tournament in jeopardy.

The Uruguay international struck either side of a Mario Balotelli goal to give Walter Mazzarri’s men the three points, and relegate City to third place in the group.

The result means that the Etihad Stadium outfit must beat Bayern Munich at home in their final Group A fixture and hope that pointless Villarreal can beat the Italians at El Madrigal in two weeks time.

Despite the situation looking grim for his side, Roberto Mancini is still not giving up hope of reaching the last 16.

“We have another game and Villarreal can beat Napoli,” he told Sky Sports.

“It is the first time we have played Champions League but I don’t think Villarreal will lose another game, they can win or draw – why not?

“Everything is not finished – never say never,” he stated.

The Italian coach feels that his side were hard done by against Napoli, and could have claimed the three points with the chances they had.

“We didn’t deserve to lose this game, we should think we can score three or four goals every game. We wanted this because that is our mentality.

“After our equaliser, we had two more chances to go 2-1 up, it is strange that we conceded this goal after 10 minutes.

“We had other chances to score, their goalkeeper was fantastic and saved three or four chances. But if you lose, probably you made mistakes.

“We conceded two stupid goals, we know Cavani goes on the first post. Cavani is a good player, a good striker, he scores goals and works for the team,” he concluded.

City now face Liverpool at home on Sunday, and will look to put their European situation to the back of their minds as they look to maintain their five point gap at the top of the Premier League.

By Gareth McKnight