Manchester City Midfielder Yaya Toure Targets Champions League Place

Ivorian keen to improve on fifth-placed finish…

By Danny Hart

Yaya Toure (Ivory Coast) - (Gettyimages)
Manchester City's summer signing Yaya Toure believes the club should set their sights on qualifying for the Champions League.

The Ivorian, who moved to Eastlands from Barcelona earlier this month, is one of four major signings this summer, with Jerome Boateng (from Hamburg), Aleksandar Kolarov (Lazio) and David Silva (Valencia) also arriving at Eastlands.

Roberto Mancini’s men narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification last season by finishing fifth, earning a place in the Europa League.

Toure says the club should aim to qualify for the Champions League first before setting their sights on a title challenge.

"I am very happy to sign for the club and I think this year will be very good for [Manchester] City," he told Sky Sports News.

"For the moment what I expect is for the club to go up, maybe finish third or fourth to be in the Champions League qualification.

"After one year with these players maybe we can take the championship.

"For now it is so difficult because with top teams like Chelsea, Man United and Arsenal they need to work hard to go up."


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10:38 PM GMT
Milan owner and former Italy prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has this to say:

“I said to Ibrahimovic not to use his hands (in reference to slapping a Napoli player at the weekend) and only his feet – he did that tonight.

“He reminded me of Van Basten, whom I am very happy for with his new job at Heerenveen.

“As for the future, we already have a great coach in Allegri and we're very happy with him. I speak to him and give him suggestions as I did with all my previous coaches.

“Champions League or Scudetto? We will try to win everything, and I think we can do just that. We had a lot of injuries, but we have a big squad, so we should be able to compete on all fronts.”


10:33 PM GMT

And now we have some reaction from San Siro, courtesy of our man in the field Sergio Stanco...

10:29 PM GMT
Robert Zeliang has this to say of Arsene Wenger: "Wrong tactics, fool. Arsenal have dug their own graves.”

Meanwhile, Tonde Chitonho has asked Thierry Henry to take Arsene Wenger back to the US with him!

And on the subject of Henry, Rizky Ferdiansyah humorously added: “King Henry couldn't beat the Prince Boateng!”
10:19 PM GMT
After the match, I took to Facebook and Twitter again to get some fan reaction. Lets take a look at what our readers have to say:

Joel Peeperkoorn feels that Arsenal should rest their big guns in the second leg, saying: “There's no way we can beat Milan by five goals."

Jez Cook, however, takes a different perspective, singing himself back to positivity: “FIVE FOUR we're gunna win five four we're gunna win five four we're gunna win five four ....FIVE FOUR we're gunna win five four we're gunna win five four we're gunna win five four ...FIVE FOUR - just keep repeating it.”

Well, you have to admire his fighting spirit...

10:10 PM GMT
Stat time again, folks, as we can reveal that tonight is Milan's biggest ever win the Champions League, while it is Arsenal's biggest ever loss in the competition!

Incidentally, no team has ever progressed in Europe after losing the first leg by such a heavy deficit.
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