For Southampton, Wednesday’s Capital One Cup clash with Liverpool was considered more important by manager Ronald Koeman than the game at City.
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Sterling fired over when presented with a great chance to make it 3-0 and Saints pulled one back early in the second half as Long powered in a header from a superb Mane cross.
“It was important to have a strong reaction in front of our fans here at home”, he continued.
City are unbeaten in their last four games against the Saints however, winning the last three and scoring nine goals in the process.
Sergio Aguero’s return to action would be a major plus for Pellegrini and his long distance goal in the dying minutes of the second half will give him hope that they can keep their title challenge alive with a few more minutes under the Argentine’s belt.
When City paid Wolfsburg £54million for Kevin De Bruyne, many questioned the wisdom of such a huge outlay on a player who had cost the German club around £18m from Chelsea only 18 months earlier. But Ivory Coast midfielder Yaya Toure is not looking for excuses and he knows City are capable of going back to the head of the Premier League with the top two of Leicester and Manchester United playing each other this weekend.
The Saints went down 3-1 to City at the Etihad Stadium in the Premier League.
Eighth place Southampton are sure to prove another tough test for the Citizens, especially as Pellegrini’s side have won only two of six matches against top-10 opponents this season.
After last Saturday’s woeful performance against Liverpool – a 4-1 defeat described as a “complete disaster” by Pellegrini – City attempted to redeem themselves with their supporters by peppering the Southampton goal from kick-off.
It looked as though they had the game won inside the opening quarter as De Bruyne scored his seventh goal of the season and Delph his first for the club.
Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City): The impact of De Bruyne at City has been a huge help to their attack, offering pace out wide and extra creativity in behind the striker – particularly in recent weeks when David Silva was out.
After a blistering start to life at City, he somewhat underwhelmed in recent matches, failing to produce a goal or an assist in his last three games.
Joe Hart is the latest name to pick up a knock and he’ll miss out here along with Samir Nasri, Pablo Zabaleta, Eliaquim Mangala and captain Vincent Kompany.
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Dusan Tadic was brought on for Oriol Romeu at half-time and made an immediate impact with some clever play after sliding a quick free-kick down the right hand side to Saido Mane who produced a phenomenal ball into the box and Shane Long rose above everyone to nod the visitors back into the game.
