Let’s all be honest, we should’ve beaten Juventus handily, we had the opportunities to do so and given Juventus’ form, it seems as if the game from a fortnight ago was just an anomaly to their otherwise shoddy start to the season.
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“We have to play our very best to win this game, but it is not a final”.
“I think it is the amount of injuries we have had that has been the more important thing”.
Pellegrini had a minor mishap before the Citizens flight to Germany after revealing he took the wrong passport to the airport and had to rush home for the right one.
Manchester City have never been able to progress beyond the knockout stages of the Champions League, but he stated that they had been unlucky in drawing opponents and also put an accent on their winning record in the competition mentioning their results against Bayern Munich and Roma as examples.
He will be without the injured Vincent Kompany, Eliaquim Mangala, Gael Clichy, Fabian Delph and Samir Nasri, and will not know until hours before the game whether David Silva and Yaya Toure are fit to play.
Pellegrini however thinks his passport blunder is not important like the three points they are targeting at against Monchengladbach.
“Well, I always repeat the same answer to the same question”, said Pellegrini with a sigh at his press conference before Wednesday’s game away to German side Borussia Monchengladbach.
It saw their captain, Vincent Kompany, go off with a calf injury. With 65 minutes played, both teams had chances to score. The Argentine’s group?stage hat-trick against Bayern last season showcased his quality and cool precision in front of goal, but he is repeatedly shouldering the goalscoring burden on his own and City have faltered because Aguero’s fellow strikers have failed to deliver.
And the goalkeeper was happy to do things the hard way for now, but says things must change in the future: “I think if you speak to our fans, it’s kind of the way we do things”.
The game was marred by a plethora of questionable decisions by the linesmen, with three of the five goals scored – including De Bruyne’s opener for City – borderline offside.
The 24-year-old said: “It gives me a good feeling”.
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One Belgian Pellegrini can call upon is the in-form Kevin de Bruyne – and he aims to show he is still the daddy on his first return to Germany since his £54million switch from Wolfsburg last month.
