City can be as good as Barca

Yaya Toure's return to Wembley for the Community Shield against Manchester United on Sunday raises the prospect of a remarkable hat-trick. The Manchester City midfielder scored the winning goal on each of his visits to the stadium last season, against United in the FACup semi-final and Stoke City in the final. Yet Toure is preoccupied with making a different kind of statement this time, as he assessed a season rich in promise for the club and one that he firmly believes, "will be the year for us". He even feels that City's whirlwind evolution into one of the country's most feared teams will one day peak with them being a match for the European champions, Barcelona. City are primed to make their Champions League debut. "I like it at Wembley but the most important thing is not that I score another goal there, it is that the team shows as a whole and that we prove to our fans and everyone else that Man City are coming," Toure said. "We have to show United we are here, and we want to win this cup for the fans. We have to make a statement from the start." Toure signed from Barcelona last summer and, like many football fans, he watched with a mixture of awe and amazement as they destroyed United at Wembley in the Champions League final last season. He suggested that the most important thing for City this season was to retain their Premier League top four status but, if Barcelona represent the benchmark, then reaching their level must be the longer-term goal. ‘I truly believe' "I was interviewed after a game last season and asked to compare City to Barcelona," Toure said, "and I responded by saying that I thought City could be as good as Barca one day. That was before Barca's amazing finish to the season and their incredible performance in the Champions League final but when I said that City could be as good I truly believed it and I still do. "We obviously have a way to go to match those teams but it is our aim. And with the ambition that the club has shown in the last few seasons and the way we are improving as a group, I think other clubs are now starting to take notice of the new Manchester City." The team have enjoyed an unbeaten pre-season, during which players have found form, fitness and confidence. The 3-0 win over Internazionale in Dublin on Sunday was the latest tonic. But it is the club's incredible spending power that has allowed the optimism to build. Although uncertainty continues to cling to the future of Carlos Tevez, the £38m (Dh227.2m) signing of Sergio Agero, a striker of similar ilk, has set the pulses racing. The manager, Roberto Mancini, deemed that Agero was not fit enough to feature against Inter; his exertions for Argentina at the Copa Amrica finished on July 16 but he will fight to put himself in Mancini's thoughts for the Community Shield. Tevez, meanwhile, who also played at the Copa Amrica for Argentina, is due back in training on Thursday and so is unlikely to be in contention to face United. "We are getting some good players returning to their best, Edin Dzeko is in good form and we have signed Agero, who is a fantastic player so we are getting better and better," Toure said. "Agero is so smart and clever, and he is very, very fast. The league this year will be very hard and we will have to improve a lot but I think this will be the year for us."