Roberto Mancini hopes to have Yaya and Kolo Toure available for Manchester City's Europa League clash with Porto on Thursday.
Mancini hoping to send out strong team in Europa League tie
Roberto Mancini hopes to have Yaya and Kolo Toure available for Manchester City's Europa League clash with Porto on Thursday.
The brothers have been away on Africa Cup of Nations duty with Ivory Coast over the past few weeks and are currently preparing for Sunday's final against Zambia.
Mancini appreciates they will be struggling with fatigue but a private jet is set to fly them back to Manchester immediately after the final.
Yaya Toure has been an especially influential player for City this season and Mancini has indicated that he will call on at least the younger man against Porto.
"I spoke to Yaya this week and he is tired because of the number of games he has played for Ivory Coast," the City boss said in the
Sunday Mirror.
"But he is an important player for us and hopefully he can recover after winning the African Nations and be ready for Thursday.
"I will play a strong team against Porto. We want to win the Europa League because it is an important trophy.
Difficult
"We have no game next week so we can concentrate fully on a good performance.
"It will be difficult to go through because Porto are a top team, but we want to do the best we can in this competition."
The Europa League may not have quite the same prestige as the UEFA Champions League but Mancini is determined to go all the way and lift the trophy after crashing out of the continent's premier competition.
"We were disappointed not to do well in the Champions League," he said. "But it was a difficult group and we were unlucky to go out with 10 points.
"Now our concentration is on the Europa. It is a long time since Manchester City won a trophy in Europe. But last season we won the FA Cup after a long time and winning a European trophy would be a big step for the club."
