But Pellegrini said: “We have just had a bad moment but it’s important to improve our performance to try to continue fighting first for the Premier League title”.
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However, in spite of his heroics, Caballero was immediately dropped to the bench for City’s defeat at Liverpool as regular number one Joe Hart returned to the starting line-up for league fixtures.
“Then after that unfortunately we conceded the first goal very early which was a big blow for the team and the second one straight after the first one was another big blow”.
The City manager collected the third trophy of his reign after stand-in goalkeeper Caballero, celebrating above, performed heroics to condemn Liverpool to defeat in a penalty shootout at Wembley. Ten points is a lot but we have one game (in hand) and in the Premier League you never know when you are going to lose points. We didn’t play well. “When you don’t have them you need a squad, but if you ask me I always want to play with Sergio the way he played today”.
“We were very frustrated about the [Liverpool] result and the game we played but it’s the past”. For Liverpool, it was a night and a performance to rightly savour, but it will be frustrating for Klopp to know his team are as equally capable of a performance of this level as they of an utterly abject display.
He said: “We play at home against the team in the worst position in the Premier League but the worst mistake we can make is thinking that we’ve already won the game”.
Kompany said: “It took us a while to break them down but once we did we had the goal difference in mind”.
The Chilean however warned his players against complacency against Villa who held them to a goalless draw in November.
The Serbian left back said: ‘Maybe we have an advantage but the other clubs are doing so well, especially Leicester and Tottenham. “As soon as we did score it made it a little bit easier to create more chances”.
“I think it was because we were not fresh”.
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Manager Remi Garde, however, insists he is not ready to accept that and is determined to fight on.
