“In terms of clear-cut chances we were way ahead of City on the day and we could have easily made it embarrassing if I’m honest, but I’m happy with two goals”.
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“If you do not finish at the top of your group, I do not think it is disappointing – Chelsea, United and Arsenal would like to be in our position”. Last season we finished the last six games without Vincent Kompany. ‘The whole season there are a lot of games we played without our important players.
“We don’t have that many players to rest – maybe there will just be two or three changes from Saturday”.
However impressive City’s defensive displays may have been without Kompany last season, the same can not be said of their form without him in the current campaign.
“We want to continue playing in Europe and this gave us a lot of confidence to keep working hard”, said Swedish left-back Oscar Wendt, who opened the scoring at Borussia Park.
They have plenty of players – Pellegrini has used 18 in their last three games – but it seems they need certain individuals, specifically the absent trio of Vincent Kompany, Yaya Touré and Sergio Aguero, to really fire.
The Chilean’s options will not increase for Tuesday’s trip to Borussia Monchengladbach either as neither Toure or Aguero will return while Fernando was forced off with a hamstring injury in this contest.
“If we don’t win, I think we qualify but not in the way we wanted”. It is important to try and finish at the top of the group. Of the dozen matches without their captain, City have lost five and they include catastrophic defensive displays at Tottenham and against Liverpool.
“They are probably about where they should be at the moment”, De Bruyne said.
“We need to play now on Tuesday”.
Aguero has missed two games since limping out of last month’s victory over Southampton with a heel injury and will again be absent as they host Borussia Monchengladbach in the Champions League tonight.
With Kompany struggling to shake off the habit of picking up muscle injuries, Martin Demichelis – missing through injury – Nicolas Otamendi and Eliaquim Mangala must find better form if City’s season is to end successfully.
“Over the complete game we didn’t have the energy to compete in the same way as Stoke and it is hard because we are the only team that is involved in all the competitions”.
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Stoke boss Mark Hughes said: “It’s satisfying because we’ve gone up against the team top of the pile in the Premier League and been able to not only match them but take the game away from them”.
