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 guilt-edged chances. They scored a goal which I think was a foul before Mandzukic finished but the referee didn’t blow the whistle.
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“But we don’t have other injuries and the team is fit, the team is doing good training sessions and that’s always important to have a good feeling for the Saturday game”.
As a result, they are no longer guaranteed top spot in Group D with one game to go ahead of next month’s draw for the last 16.
Sevilla, Europa League winners in each of the last two seasons, now must beat Juve in their final game and hope Gladbach don’t defeat City just to claim the consolation of dropping into the secondary competition.
Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini believes luck played a part in his side’s defeat at the hands of Juventus tonight. Much has been made of the transitional phase that Juventus are going through since the departures of Andrea Pirlo, Artuto Vidal and Carlos Tevez but the rise of Pogba, along with the maturity and winning mentality that the backbone of this team consistently brings, meant Juventus were simply too hard a foe for a fragile City to overcome, providing them with a very harsh lesson in true collective balance.
Incredibly, City have not lost two league games in a row at home in seven years.
“What’s important is that we won”.
“In this moment, it is impossible to know – he has a problem in his hamstring”, the Chilean said.
Are Juve stronger than City? .
“We are continuing on the right path, we allow few chances and remain sharp to the 90th minute”.
City fought to the end and Toure went close with a long-range drive but it was not to be their night.
But yesterday, his decisions to field a three-man defence, to put prefer Alex Sandro to Patrice Evra on the left of midfield and to start with Mario Mandzukic and Paulo Dybala as the two-man strikeforce all paid off handsomely.
Sergio Aguero was gifted a chance just before the break when he pounced on a shocking back-pass by Claudio Marchisio but Gianluigi Buffon came off his line to narrow the angle and denied the City striker.
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City nearly levelled on 53 minutes when Fernando got up to meet a De Bruyne corner and his downward header was pushed on to the post by Buffon before he gathered before Toure could force the ball in from close range.
