“Juventus have given an exhibition of European professionalism, Champions League professionalism, and Manchester City’s great start to the season is in tatters”.
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Manager Manuel Pellegrini admitted his side needed to be more clinical but did not blame Sterling for spurning two of the better opportunities.
“The differences are very slight, especially against a strong team like Juventus“.
There is still plenty of time to recover but City need to win games such as this if they are to finish top of the group and avoid the potentially hazardous last-16 draw.
So far though the Manchester City faithful have been less than impressed with Bony’s contribution since becoming a Citizen and the goalscoring responsibility still weighs heavily on the shoulders of his Argentinian teammate.
The sense of injustice seemed to provide Juventus with some attacking impetus, though, and Mandzukic met a wonderful deep cross from Pogba on 70 minutes to level the score.
“We deserved to win it but football is a amusing old game”.
“The Italian team played very well, defended very well and I think they’ve been lucky”.
It was a familiar tale for City – who have yet to win an opening Champions League home game in five attempts in the group stage – but Pellegrini is confident they can still make the last 16.
“I expect that when we have chances we must score. We are a little unhappy but we can take confidence to the next game”.
“I’m disappointed with the result”.
Morata struck Juve’s 81st-minute victor , a fine, curling effort from the edge of the box, after Vincent Kompany had gone off and Pellegrini later revealed that his captain had injured his calf.
City missed Sergio Aguero up front with their star striker limited to just six minutes off the bench due to a knee injury.
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His side will now host West Ham United at the Etihad this weekend as they look to maintain their flawless start to their domestic campaign.
