Roberto Mancini eyes top four spot

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The Italian saw his side finish fifth in the last campaign, just missing out on a Champions League place, while they also reached the semi-finals of the Carling Cup.

Mancini has strengthened his squad by bringing in Germany international Jerome Boateng from Hamburg, Ivory Coast's Yaya Toure from Barcelona and Spain's David Silva from Valencia.

Silva has a World Cup final against Holland to look forward to on Sunday while Boateng and Toure were also on duty for their countries in South Africa.

Mancini is counting down the days until August.

"Excited? Yes I am," he told www.mcfc.co.uk. "Even before I see where we finish in the transfer market and which players come here, I think it will be a good season for us.

"I think we have a squad for success, and our supporters deserve this. Last year we did have a good season.

"We didn't get to the Champions League, but we still had a good season. Now it is time that some trophies came to this club."

Mancini is pleased with his additions and said: "We have got Boateng, Yaya Toure and David Silva, all three of them are good players. Silva and Boateng are very young, a good investment for the club.

"And Yaya has fantastic experience with Barcelona, where he won a lot of trophies.

"We need to have the players if we want to reduce the gap with the other teams. We need to bring in players with good quality."

Explaining the decision to name David Platt as first-team coach, Mancini said: "He played with me at Sampdoria for two years. He was captain of the national team and manager of the Under-21s.

"He will be important to us this year. If we want to start to win trophies, if we want to start a new era at City, then it is important to improve the team and to improve the staff."