Champions League? We're all mad for it, although City boss Roberto Mancini reckons the Blues' qualifying group is a "crazy league", according to The Independent's Steve Tongue.

As well as reporting Sergio Aguero's afternoon work-out against Wigan, the Sunday papers look forward to City's return to elite European competition, and Tongue licks his lips, as it were.

He notes how circumstances differ from the time when "their extrovert coach Malcolm Allison thundered that his English champions would 'terrify Europe'. In the first round, Fenerbahce of Turkey, hardly among the contemporary giants, knocked them out 2-1."

Now, he says, it's "different times, different personalities. Their spokesman this time, whispering rather than thundering, is the softly spoken Roberto Mancini, and far from threatening to spread terror, he will go only as far as suggesting that Group A, also including Bayern Munich, Villarreal and Napoli, is open and that the Champions' League is such an unpredictable competition as to be regarded as 'crazy'."

He quotes Roberto: "The Champions' League is a difficult competition. You can have a top team like United last year or Inter for many years and not win. Champions' League depends if you are lucky after the draw. We want to go into the second stage and after that we're waiting for the draw."

Steve adds: "Reminded that Bayern's Franck Ribéry apparently put his head in his hands when drawn with City, Mancini said: 'We talk about a difficult group but it is difficult too for the other teams. Bayern is used to playing Champions' League.

"'But in this group every team can win the group or you can arrive in fourth position. Champions' League is a crazy competition. For us it's important that we play well in the first group, go into the second stage and after that you must be lucky.'"

Still with the Indy, James Corrigan discusses why Garry Cook connected so well with Blues fans, and queries the delight in some quarters of the media at his departure. Worth a read.

NB The club are seeking to redress fundamental inaccuracies, the distortion of facts, and a breach of basic journalistic good practice in a number of articles in today's media reports. In some instances legal action will be pursued, notably in the case of an article in The People by Steve Bates.