“A lot of people were disappointed not to be top of the group, but it is not finished”, said Pellegrini, whose side lost 1-0 at Juventus in their previous group fixture.
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While the Blues Manager still doesn’t call out players he no longer defends performances after shocking defeats.
“I always miss important names but you have to play with the players you have”.
“In this game we are playing with the same players in the last three games – maybe it’s the reason why we didn’t play with the energy that we need to win”. “There are a lot of things in the future we are not thinking about”.
Pellegrini whose side face Borussia Monchengladbach on Tuesday night admitted: “It would be very bad for the Premier League for Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United to be eliminated”.
The visitors’ disappointment was compounded when Fernando limped off with a hamstring injury late on, exacerbating the injury glut that has ripped the core from Pellegrini’s team.
While key players such as Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero and Vincent Kompany were missing City still boasted an attacking of Raheem Sterling, Wilfried Bony, David Silva and Kevin de Bruyne, a quartet costing close to 150 million pounds ($226.65 million).
City, who last week announced a huge financial tie up with the Chinese, are anxious to land Europe’s biggest prize. Both teams played on it and Stoke deserved to beat us today. “If we had the complete week to recover it might be easy but we must play again on Tuesday and are going to play with the same players that played in this game except Kelechi Iheanacho, who can not play”, Pellegrini said.
“I felt today was the flawless game for it and it’s paid off. They all worked exceptionally hard to make it work”.
Saturday’s 3-1 win at home to Pep Guardiola’s Bayern extended Gladbach’s unbeaten run under new coach Andre Schubert to 10 league games and having risen from bottom of the table to third, they travel to Manchester brimming with belief.
“Obviously the conditions didn’t suit the way we play but we can’t honestly use that as an excuse”, he said.
“The defence is the whole team and the attack is the whole team”, he said.
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“We didn’t perform well but the team always fights and we’ll get a good result next time”. That makes the win all the sweeter. “That paid off in the end”.
