A first-half strike from Mario Mandzukic saw Juventus, last season’s beaten finalists, into the last 16 after Massimiliano Allegri’s men produced a dominant display in Turin to drop City into second place in Group D at two points adrift.
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The Serie A champions also threatened to add to their lead, but Pellegrini declared that the Citizens deserved at least a share of the spoils, which would have kept them in top spot.
City will now have to defeat Borussia Monchengladbach at the Etihad Stadium in their final group game next month and hope Sevilla can do them a favour by defeating Juve on home soil.
“If he [Pellegrini] loses sleep tonight it’s not because they think they’ll probably finish second in the group now, I think it’s more that his team had three or four gilt-edged chances”, Quinn told Soccer Special.
“One player can not play 50 games a season so we’ve got to consider the way we rotate them”.
“We hope we don’t lose him but for if for some reason he can not play I have trust in Willy Caballero”.
He said: “We are quite disappointed”.
Pogba feinted round his marker and the former Manchester United player spread the ball to the left for Alex Sandro to cross in towards Mandzukic, who volleyed home.
“We have to see what Juventus will do against Sevilla”.
“They scored a goal which I think was a foul before Mandzukic finished but the referee didn’t blow the whistle”. We have two spare games to try to win the group.
“But, without doubt, with Sergio this team is a better team”.
City went close to punishing that decision, yet Andrea Barzagli somehow deflected a close-range effort from substitute Raheem Sterling to preserve his side’s advantage.
But the City boss reckons if Arsenal and Manchester United crash out of the Champions League at the group stages – as both are in danger of – it will boost their rivals’ chances of winning the title. We have to deal with that and bounce back in the next game. “We were not clinical enough, that is part of football, to win you need to score goals and these things can happen”.
The Brazil midfielder was City’s chief threat in the early stages, yet he could have done better when he fired over from a good position after the ball fell invitingly following a duel in the box between Yaya Touré and Giorgio Chiellini.
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Having made sure of their own last-16 berth with a superb 3-1 win at Sevilla in their previous game, City manager Manuel Pellegrini urged his team to grab top spot with victory in Turin.
