James Lawton: Could this be Mancini's finest hour? Only if he shows boldness that has so far been lacking

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Every so often comes a day that might just shape the rest of a professional life.

So this morning we have to say "buon giorno, Roberto Mancini". This may be the one when he gets within touching distance of the Premier League title, when he responds more positively than ever before to the possibility that he is indeed the man to translate Manchester City's vast wealth into their first major achievement since the days of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison 40-odd years ago.

Denis Law, a hero of both City and opponents Manchester United, says, "City have the money, the players, and this is the most important Manchester derby for many, many years."

The Lawman is right on two counts, plainly, but he omits a verdict on the most important one of all when the most expensively assembled squad in the history of the English game arrives at Old Trafford at nigh noon.

It is the one provoking the question: do City have the will, the competitive nerve, to deliver another crunching blow to the league leaders just a week after the ending of their unbeaten run by Wolves?

Most importantly, does Mancini have anything like enough of the boldness and the tactical certainty to reach out for the great reward of blasting wide-open the title race?

The other side of this glittering coin is slipping eight points behind with an extra game played – and a huge question mark against the manager's policy of attempting to inch his team into the Champions League and towards the title. Will he ever make a more aggressive statement about his team's ability to compete toe to toe in the here and now with the best of their rivals?

For many, United's loss at Molineux was nothing so much as an underlining of a possibility unexplored to the point of negligence by almost all of their previous opponents – and not least City when they entertained them at Eastlands last November.

So many in English football believe that all season United have been victims primed for the taking, that with the loss of Ronaldo augmented by the sharp decline of Wayne Rooney they have been punching, and wrestling, far beyond their true weight, and that at Molineux for the first time inherent weaknesses were properly exploited.

There is an unavoidable extension of this thinking that piles a new level of pressure on Mancini today. It is that if Mick McCarthy's desperados could get the job done, surely it is within the reach of City today, and if not where will the responsibility be most fairly placed: to overpaid, underachieving players or a manager still too reluctant to take them off the leash?

Wolves had only their relegation chains to lose. At risk for City is their best chance since the avalanche of oil money to make a significant impact at the top of the Premier League – and Mancini's credibility back in head office.

No one would reasonably anticipate a gung-ho City at Old Trafford. But if we should not be talking about a shoot-out at the OK Corral surely there has to be some convincing evidence that they can lift their effort when everything is on the line.

So far this season City have produced only one truly convincing performance as serious title contenders. That was in the powerful subduing of a Chelsea who at the time were threatening to run away to their second straight title.

Beside that, what have City shown precisely? Essentially, you have to say, some flat-track bullying and numbingly passive performances against United at home and Arsenal at the Emirates.

Last season City paid a terrible price for going to Arsenal without any serious ambition to win. They were punished when Spurs stole ahead of them for a Champions League place. Today, there is a greater prize at stake but it is one to which they can wave goodbye if Mancini fails in an attempt to back his way into another goalless draw.

With Carlos Tevez aided by the gifted Edin Dzeko, and with the creativity of David Silva there to probe weakness that may again emerge in the absence of Rio Ferdinand, Mancini's challenge could scarcely be more basic.

As an Italian and winner of three Serie A titles Mancini is never likely to be criticised for desiring a secure defence – the United team of Law, Charlton and Best had one of the meanest defences in the game – but there is now a pressing need to apply more persistent pressure on United's failings at the back and struggles in midfield.

It would not be the shock of the season if Sir Alex Ferguson asks for one more day of Indian Summer from Paul Scholes, but we can be sure that whatever the disposition of his forces he will not retreat behind the kind of trenches dug by his opposite number in the City of Manchester Stadium the last time they met.

That would be more than a loss of face. It would be self-betrayal. But, no, it will not happen. Indeed, as a battle over how the game is best prosecuted we could end the discussion right now.

However, City have strengths which could prove decisive even if they are underdeveloped. They could see Yaya Touré create a platform for the impassioned raiding of Tevez. The trouble is such performances tend not to come by one day's order. They tend not to erupt. More usually, they come from practice and confidence.

This creates the suspicion here that in a match in which the bookmakers have established the draw as second favourite, with United 5-6 and City 7-2, United will prevail again.

United may not be what they were but, given the demands of a day like this, they should still be ahead of anything City have shown so far. This, anyway, is the assumption Roberto Mancini is obliged to smash. Otherwise, the only thing he is likely to back into is a wall.

Triesman lands some telling blows in counter-attack

Naturally, the Premier League has been sending some heavy ordinance in the direction of the former chairman of the FA, Lord Triesman.

It is the inevitable consequence of his evidence to the parliamentary committee investigating something we describe, with inescapable irony, as the governance of English football.

The truth is that, if Triesman's fall from office was acutely embarrassing, his brief tenure was precisely what was expected from an independent chairman.

His main point of attack was at the blood-curdling economics of the game – and the ever-growing disparity between the rich, the poor and the doomed.

There are sharply differing views about the political skill Triesmann brought to this important task, but it is no hardship acknowledging that he made some vital points in the House, not least when he singled out the bullying tactics of the league through its chairman, Sir Dave Richards.

If a government inquiry is set up, it might make a profitable start by analysing the progress of Richards to the top of the football totem pole. The finding might be that while bullying is one issue ineptitude could just be another.

Bailey made virtue out of hard work

Trevor Bailey was a superbly competitive cricketer and footballer – with an FA Amateur Cup medal to prove it – but away from the field of play he sometimes appeared slightly to the right of Genghis Khan.

However, he was indisputably correct when he said that hard work was one of the supreme virtues.

It helped that he produced unforgettable supporting evidence when he and the late Yorkshireman Willie Watson, another fine football player, held up the Australians for four hours at Lord's in 1953. The resulting draw was a key to England's regaining of the Ashes.

First Nat Lofthouse, "the Lion of Vienna", now "Barnacle" Bailey – let us hope we can restock a dwindling treasury of heroes for the ages.