Pellegrini has routinely played strong teams in domestic cup competitions – and indeed takes his team to Wembley for the League Cup final a week later – and says he would regret having to play an under-strength team. We couldn’t do it and now we are six points behind Leicester, but we have another 39 points to play for so it is important to be focused game by game and try to beat Tottenham here, as they are another team fighting for the title.
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Arsenal have acquired one of the masterminds behind Leicester City’s surprise Premier League title challenge, after head of technical scouting Ben Wrigglesworth confirmed he would be moving to The Emirates Stadium. I’m fairly sure at the start it was a free-kick to us because Flamini was there first and I didn’t see how high he was.
“We must give credit to Leicester. I think they were a really solid team, they deserve the three points”.
The Uruguayan has said in the past that he would find it hard to return to England with a club that isn’t Liverpool but the lure of playing under Guardiola could be hard to resist.
That said, he is likely to face an almighty battle in convincing Barcelona – and indeed, Mrs. Busquets – that the time is right to allow Sergio to get his reunion with Pep.
Manchester City have suffered a fresh injury setback with David Silva the latest player to be sidelined.
City will back Pellegrini if he carries through his threat to field a team of youngsters against Chelsea.
The duo told our correspondent on Thursday that Iheanacho has shown himself to be the kind of player the former Barcelona coach would love to work with.
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Pellegrini said: “If we continue in the FA Cup, we will have to postpone two Premier League games (later in the season), and there is no option to play those games in midweek”. In particular, I struggle to see Pellegrini getting much of anything out of Yaya Toure as the season progresses. “We have the Champions League coming up as well so we need to reach again our best form and obviously you need your best playing their best football”. Every game is played in the same way. Leicester have been the resurgence of the league, earning 50 points in their first 24 games this season. I’m just not sure that the guilt and shame they feel about letting their manager down is enough to win them any silverware.
