Manchester City's former fitness coach Raymond Verheijen has fired a broadside at Roberto Mancini.

The club's former conditioning expert has reflected on "the enormous amount of injuries at Manchester City" and speaks of his hope that "Mancini will finally question his training methods".

The Guardian says in a series of messages on Twitter yesterday the Dutchman expressed his misgivings about Mancini subjecting players to "over-use damage" and drew a direct correlation with City's injury problems going into the game against Chelsea on Saturday, when they will have up to seven established players missing.

"I really feel sorry for [the] Man City players. They are having a difficult time. Hopefully none of them will suffer a career threatening injury," he wrote.

A City spokesman said: "Mr Verheijen appears to have become a regular critic of Roberto Mancini's training methods, perhaps not entirely coincidentally since his consultancy services at Manchester City were terminated by the club several months ago. We wish him well in his future practice."