ROBERTO MANCINI says he has detected an improvement in Mario Balotelli’s behaviour and has promised the talented but frequently wayward forward that he will soon return to the Manchester City team.

Balotelli has not started for City since his poor performance and temperamental reaction when he was substituted in the Community Shield defeat against Manchester United at Wembley.

In the meantime, Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko have established themselves as Mancini’s first-choice strike partnership, but the City manager believes he has noticed a change in his countryman’s attitude during his time out of the team.

“In the last four weeks he has worked very well,” Mancini said. “I’ve been very impressed with his attitude. I’m not sure we can say he has changed in the space of four weeks but he’s worked well, even though he hasn’t played, and I’m sure he can have a good season.”

The Italian’s contribution this season has been restricted to a 19-minute substitute appearance in the 3-0 defeat of Wigan Athletic last weekend, and his preparations for tomorrow’s game at Fulham were disrupted this week when he was summoned to Naples to face questions from the public prosecutor about why he recently took a guided tour of Scampia, a stronghold of the Camorra group.

Balotelli was allegedly accompanied on the trip by a suspected Camorra leader, Marco Iorio, though Balotelli has since claimed he did not know who he was.

In England, his 13 months at City have been notorious for the number of controversies he has been involved in but the apparent change in his attitude is such that Mancini and his coaching staff are prepared to promote him ahead of Carlos Tevez if the Argentinian reacts badly to losing his automatic first-team place.

If not Mancini has still assured him that he remains an important part of his plans. “I’m not worried about Mario,” Mancini said. “Mario can also play as a winger as well as a striker, so maybe he can have more chances if we play with Aguero, Carlos or Dzeko as our two strikers.”

City arranged a 60-minute practice match this week for Owen Hargreaves to improve his fitness and he has an outside chance of being on the bench at Fulham today.