“We’ve gained a lot of confidence in the last few weeks and we’ll go to Manchester with good belief in what we can do”, United States full-back Fabian Johnson told the Bundesliga website. The first from a beautifully weighted cross and the second, a flawless through goal ball which provided Stoke with the pivotal three points to see themselves move into 10th place on 22 points in the Premier League, alongside Crystal Palace and Watford.
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Mark Hughes’s Stoke players had watched Liverpool’s high-energy display against City – as well as the way Spurs played in beating them 4-1 in September – and Pellegrini’s team, as on those two occasions, could not cope.
City’s defence have recorded just two clean sheets in the last 18 matches, after not conceding a goal in their opening five games of the season, and it is no coincidence the absence of captain Vincent Kompany to injury has affected their stability at the back.
Said Shaqiri: “We tried this (partnership with Arnautovic) in training so we of course are happy that we scored in the game like this”.
“It is important that we play how the coach wants and today we see that from the first minute we want to win the game”.
Kevin De Bruyne has urged his Manchester City team-mates to show what they are made of when they host Borussia Monchengladbach on Tuesday after Saturday’s defeat at the hands of Stoke City.
The only good news for City fans is that Vincent Kompany, Sergio Aguero, Pablo Zabaleta and Yaya Toure are all expected to make a comeback by next week when the Citizens welcome Swansea to the Etihad.
City were deservedly beaten at the Britannia Stadium, where a slick Stoke side prevailed courtesy of an early Marko Arnautovic brace and could conceivably have won more comfortably.
“We are playing in other competitions with the same 13 or 14 players”, he noted. We can win against every team in the Premier League.
Still, the club are well in the title race and in the last 16 of the Champions League, as well as the semi-finals of the Capital One Cup.
“We are supposing that if we finish second, we will have a bad draw”, Pellegrini said.
“We didn’t have the legs to not only defend better than we did but also to attack because we didn’t create any chances”.
He gained a measure of revenge today as two Marko Arnautovic goals helped knock his old club off the top of the Barclays Premier League. “Maybe it’s the reason why we didn’t play with the energy that we need to win”.
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“I think in terms of clear-cut chances we were way ahead of Man City and could have made it embarrassing”.
