Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini has confirmed striker Mario Balotelli has been fined a week's wages for breaking a club curfew.

The 21-year-old accepted the punishment - believed to be around £120,000 - after being pictured outside a strip club in Liverpool in the early hours of Friday morning, contravening club regulations ahead of Saturday's game against Bolton.

Balotelli went on to play and score in the Barclays Premier League leaders' 2-0 defeat of the Trotters at the Etihad Stadium, but Mancini expressed his disappointment and pledged to investigate.

Mancini said: "I spoke with Mario and gave him a fine of one week's wages for what he did.

"This is normal because every player should have good behaviour before the game.''

When asked if Balotelli had accepted the fine, Mancini said: "Yes.''

It is the second time Balotelli has broken a curfew this season - among a host of other high-profile misdemeanours - but he admitted in an interview published yesterday that he had made a mistake.

Mancini was speaking in Portugal ahead of the first leg of City's Europa League last-16 tie against Sporting Lisbon at the Jose Alvalade.

The Italian dismissed suggestions from the Portuguese side that the club may underestimate the challenge ahead of them.

City thrashed Portuguese champions Porto 6-1 on aggregate in the previous round but Mancini insists there will be no complacency as they come up against a lower-ranked side.

Sporting are currently fourth in the Portuguese league, 14 points behind Porto, and suffered a shock loss to struggling Setubal at the weekend.

Mancini said: "I played here five years ago with Inter (Milan) in the Champions League and we lost. We had the same situation the day before.

"I don't think an easy game exists in football, in the Europa League. Every game is very difficult.

"If we want to win tomorrow we should play very well and have good concentration for this game.

"Sporting Lisbon are a good team and play very good football.''

Sporting coach Ricardo Sa Pinto and goalkeeper Rui Patricio had both said that City would pay the price if they have not done their homework ahead of the game.

Sa Pinto said: "My stance on football is always to be very well informed about my opponent.

"Maybe not everyone does that and that is up to them, but after tomorrow they maybe won't forget about some of the Sporting players' names.''

Patricio said: "I don't care whether they know Sporting's players or not - they will get to know them tomorrow.

"We have no fear. It is 11 against 11 and anything can happen.

"It will be a tough game, City are a very strong team.

"But we are playing at home, we will be united and will fight for victory until the end.

"We know what went wrong against Setubal and we won't be affected by that.

"We are professionals, we are an excellent team with quality players.

"We are very united and with grit and ambition I am sure we will be able to beat Manchester City.'


Match

Mukina2

game on

goalless half time , boring game

lisbon score 1-0

Why does City seem to only have steam when it's an EPL game?
Boring game, sloppy play from City and a well-deserved loss.

There used to be a City thread somewhere. . .where is it? And where is Krayola, City's number one fan?

Okay, United up next.

Its just 1 -0 . If city is serious it can be overturned

They're going nowhere. Watch what will happen in the return leg. Something similar to what Spurs did to Milano last season in UCL will happen again.