Mancini, who said on Friday Balotelli could not be trusted, pondered taking off his fellow Italian before the forward's first half penalty and a late second helped City battle back to secure a point after trailing 3-1 with five minutes to play.
"I thought about taking him off after five minutes but in the end he scored two goals," said Mancini. "He didn't play well. In a game like this the strikers should be the difference - but not in the last two minutes, in the minutes before."
He added: "A player like Mario or [Edin] Dzeko should score two or three goals in a game like this. In this moment we need Carlos Tevez, a striker who can do different. I want this."
But while one Argentine striker returned, another was missing with Sergio Aguero sidelined with what Mancini described as a "stupid" foot injury, although he would not elaborate.
"I think a draw was a fair result, but we didn't do a good performance. I am only happy with the last 10 minutes, I am unhappy with the first 80 minutes because we did not play well."
Mancini though, was putting an optimistic spin on things saying: "I think on Monday United will probably draw and we will be three points behind.
"It is hard but we have another seven games. We have done some mistakes in the last games but also United can arrive in a difficult moment. It is important we are there."
Sunderland responded well after losing 2-0 at home to Everton in an FA Cup quarter-final replay in midweek and manager Martin O'Neill said: "I think we got a little bit tired, maybe after the exertions and the disappointment of Tuesday night.
"We seemed to put that aside and performed excellently [at first] but it was a combination of both Manchester City fighting back and us getting tired."
