Manchester City assistant manager David Platt has echoed Roberto Mancini's belief that his side need to score more goals.

City have scored just 10 goals in the last nine games, with their latest match ending in a 1-0 defeat to Sunderland, leaving them seven points behind title rivals Manchester United.

Platt believes that Mancini's description of his strikers as "soft" has been taken out of context, but did concede that they need to start converting a higher percentage of their chances.

"I don't think he means soft - sometimes it can be lost in translation. In the last few games we have produced enough efforts on goal but if you correlate the statistics we should be scoring more goals," said Platt.

"These things have a habit of balancing out over the season. Goalscorers, at the end of the season, usually have the same quota that they had [in previous years].

"What we have to do is keep on producing the chances. But it's not just about strikers. We have to start scoring goals when we have a supremacy in the game."

City's next match comes away to Norwich City on Saturday as they look to get their title challenge back on track.