Juventus’ Claudio Marchisio, right, and Manchester City’s Yaya Toure go for the ball during the Champions League, group D soccer match between Juventus and Manchester City, at the Juventus Stadium in Turin, Italy, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015.
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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.
“It will be a very hard game they must play away”. We don’t know if they will be the top team coming out of Group D or in second – all Juve needs is a draw against Sevilla to wrap up first place – but we know they’re still in the dance. “David improved a little bit more the last two days and he’s working with the physio in Manchester”.
Manuel Pellegrini urged Manchester City to rediscover the swagger of their previous Champions League performance and put Saturday’s thrashing against Liverpool behind them when they take on Juventus in Turin.
Juventus now have 11 points while City in second place are on nine points going into the last group games in December.
“We have to bounce back in the next game that’s coming”.
Juventus have got to travel to Seville on Matchday 6, and only a defeat for The Old Lady would give City a chance of topping the group, given the head-to-head record between the top two.
Substitute Raheem Sterling passed up a glorious chance to equalise in the closing stages before a miserable night for Pellegrini was compounded by an apparent groin injury to Joe Hart.
Paul Pogba was key in everything Juve did well in the game though Man City also had chances of their own. We had the first chance – Fernandinho – to score, but we didn’t. “But we’ve got to have the mentality that we want to win the competition – that’s the only mentality we can have”, Hart told the Daily Telegraph.
The paper says that could leave City without seven first team regulars this weekend.
“I made the decision to field Mandzukic a couple of days ago, we needed a player with his characteristics”, Allegri said in a touchline television interview. In this moment we must wait to see what Juventus will do against Sevilla.
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This is one of the world’s finest young players who City paid big money for, and Pellegrini needs to find a way of returning him to his best as quickly as possible. As yet the severity of the hamstring injury is unknown, but it’s far from ideal given how other fitness problems have affected the team this season.
