Roberto Mancini: 'Manchester City must improve against Liverpool'

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has admitted that his side must improve on their performance against Southampton if they are to overcome Liverpool on Sunday.

City overcame a 2-1 deficit to beat Southampton 3-2 last Sunday and Mancini has said that his players were "bad" on the day.

"We always play a tough match in the second game," PA Sport quotes Mancini as saying. "Liverpool will be a very strong game."

"[Against Southampton] we played a bad game, we were not a team. We were 10 players that tried to score. We showed our character but we didn't play as a team.

"This could be normal in the first game but if we want to win, we have to play as a team."

Liverpool won the away leg of their Europa league qualifying playoff 1-0 against Hearts last night.