In the current headlines, crazed madman Raoul Moat has been the cause of a major police hunt in Northumbria. A different RM is copying the Metropolitan Police by hunting for something, only this time, Roberto Mancini is on the hunt to bring success to the City of Manchester Stadium for the first time in 34 years.

Mancini has indicated that the Eastlands side have not finished with their summer spending and are in the pursuit of trophies. City’s fifth placed finish in the Premier League meant that they missed out on a Champions League place for this coming season. Mancini has his first pre-season and summer transfer window at the club and looks like he means business with Sheikh Mansour’s money, purchasing Yaya Toure from Barcelona, David Silva from Valencia and Jerome Boateng from Hamburg. However, the former Inter Milan manager hasn’t finished and is preparing to go back to his former side and take troublemaker Mario Balotelli off chairman Massimo Moratti’s hands.

Mancini told Manchester City’s official website that he was excited for the coming season and believes “we have a squad for success, and our supporters deserve this”. The Italian is pleased with his additions and has exclaimed that, “Silva and Boateng are very young, a great investment for the club. And Yaya has fantastic experience with Barcelona, where he won a lot of trophies”.

Confidence is the key word, when talking about Man City. They have young players, who have charisma and the ability to woo the City faithful. They are looking to progress one further than their 5th placed finish and their semi-final appearance in the Carling Cup. If they continue to strengthen and prise their key targets they have been rumoured to be buying, they could pose a real threat to the top three and have a real chance of being title contenders. This would only happen, if they fused all their players together and made them work well as a team. If, like last season, there is too much conflict and competition for places, they could only just miss out, again, on trophy chances.

It will be interesting to see what can be acheived at Eastlands and picking up opening fixture victories against Spurs and Liverpool in the first two games will set the tone for the rest of the season. As most people on the red half of Manchester have feared since the Sheikh’s takeover, the blue moon is rising and Manchester United will be anticipating the fixture on November 10th to see if they can contribute to the fall. If City beat United in that nighttime kick off, United will definitely sit up and take notice of their “noisy neighbours”.