Mancini told Man City players they were 's**t' without Yaya Toure

The Italian boss remembers his brutal put-down to City’s squad after a defeat against Everton.

Manchester City suffered a 1-0 defeat against Everton in January 2012. The Citizens were in a close title race with Manchester United, with the draw eliminating City’s two-point lead.

City’s talismanic figure in midfield, Yaya Toure, was away with Ivory Coast at the Africa Cup of Nations. In an interview with former City defender Micah Richards, Roberto Mancini remembers how he used Toure’s absence to get a reaction from his squad.

“We were in a difficult moment and I needed to get a reaction from you all,” the then City boss told Daily Mail.

“Oh Everton… A very, very bad stadium! Always we had a problem there, we lost 1-0. I was thinking to myself: “How do I get a reaction from these players?” So I said to you: ‘Without Yaya Toure, you are a **** team!’

“I walked off. All the players were going crazy at me, shouting! But after this game, we won nearly every game to the end.”

City won their next five games as they continued their remarkable run toward winning the Premier League. On the final game of the season, Sergio Aguero secured City’s first league title in 44 years by scoring one of the most iconic goals in the history of the English top-flight.

Asked about winning the title after the dramatic win against QPR, Mancini responded: “All the time… I get the goose-bumps – one of the best victories ever,

“Someone showed me a clip of the goals recently. I was so emotional seeing it. The goal Sergio scored was for every one of us. In the last two minutes, I’m thinking to myself: “we cannot lose this game, we just cannot lose this game.” But football is like this.

“Nobody remembers that Yaya was off the pitch, injured. Nigel De Jong was on. The last 10 minutes, we had five strikers on the pitch. They had one man less, as (Joey) Barton had been sent off. We had a lot of chances to score but still we are losing 1-2.”