Man City boss Roberto Mancini unhappy at wasted chances

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini pointed to "four incredible chances to score" at West Ham and, in particular, a miss from striker Mario Balotelli.

The Italian striker missed a chance from close range in the goalless draw.

"I think that a player like Balotelli, when he has a chance like [that], he should score," said Mancini.

"It's not a fair result," he added. "When you have 65% ball possession, 22 shots - maybe less shots on goal - you deserve to win."

Balotelli started alongside fellow strikers Carlos Tevez and Edin Dzeko but the trio could not prevent City failing to score for the first time since April, a result that leaves them third, two points behind table-topping local rivals Manchester United.

Mancini, who took Balotelli off after 69 minutes, continued: "When you are a top player, if you have a chance, you should score this - but I don't think [Balotelli] didn't want to score."

Asked about the scoreline, he said: "No, no, [it was] not a fair result.

"But I am happy with the performance, because we played well - I'm unhappy with the chances that we're missing.

"When you're playing well and you have a chance, and you're missing an incredible chance, you can be frustrated - but this is football. If you don't score, you can't win - we lost two points."

West Ham could have taken an early lead when Kevin Nolan had what appeared a legitimate goal ruled out for offside but Hammers boss Sam Allardyce was delighted with the result.

"I'm really pleased," he said. "I think that our performance from start to finish was very, very good indeed.

"The way we started the game was bright, trying to see if we could test Man City early on.

"Of course, we did that with a fantastically taken goal by Kevin Nolan that I think was a little unfortunate to be given offside.

"But the first half, we tried the best we possibly could to put more and more pressure on Man City.

"Of course we would have to do some severe defending somewhere along the line and that wasn't so much in the first half but certainly was in the second."