Pellegrini said: “I always say that Raheem is a very young player”.
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Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has backed Joe Hart to one day become club and England captain.
“We don’t have Samir Nasri for four or five months”, Pellegrini said.
“There are a lot of things why I took the decisions with the starting XI but there was not one thing”.
England forward Sterling is set to face the Reds for the first time on Saturday since his acrimonious and protracted £49million (Dh273m) move from Anfield to City in the summer.
“We have played together for two years and a half and never like that and I do not want a repeat”.
“But he must start in this game because we don’t have Bony and it is important for the team to have Sergio”. “I am not interested in who is the best team in the league for as long as we are not the best team in the league”, he said. “I didn’t feel it was possible to lose our last game, but we did, and now we have won the three points back”.
“It was not our night and we have to turn the situation around quickly because we have an important game (against Juventus in the Champions League) on Wednesday night”.
Klopp stressed that although his side counter-attacked really well, they could defend much better.
“It is normal in football if you have quality – and we have quality – you can be in the lead”.
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The German selected the majority of players he had to work with at Melwood during the worldwide break and the link-up play between Coutinho and Firmino certainly proved that was the right call with the latter particularly impressive.
