Manchester City’s Kelechi Iheanacho (right) stands dejected in the centre circle with teammate Wilfried Bony after conceding their third goal during the Barclays Premier League match at St Marys, Southampton.
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Pellegrini made major changes to his team who were beaten 4-2 and, despite another impressive display by Kelechi Iheanacho, no City player emerged well as Sadio Mané scored a hat-trick and Southampton secured a convincing victory.
“I would do exactly the same again because we have an important game on Wednesday to play for the Champions League final”, the outgoing manager told reporters.
Pellegrini, who confirmed he expects Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure and Kevin de Bruyne to be fit to face Real, added: “I’m very disappointed, especially in the defending, because we were doing well in the other games”.
Man City will want to wrap their star players up in cotton wool ahead of their semi-final clash with Real Madrid later next week.
“But it is hard for them to take a risk because they don’t know if he will play for just five minutes and then they lose him for the rest of the season”. “So we need to put this game behind us because it is gone and not going to come back”.
“If Manchester City made it to the semifinals, it’s because they’re an excellent team”, Ronaldo said.
What was also unbelievable was the ease with which Southampton continued to create chance after chance against a fragile City defence.
And he insists he won’t be fazed if Pellegrini calls on him at the Bernabeu to score the goals to help fire City into the Champions League final.
“I wasn’t happy about the intensity of Graziano in the training sessions this week”, said Koeman, issuing an outright challenge to the 30-year-old to sharpen up.
He said: “Sadio can be a bit unpredictable but he was focused and clinical”. It all depends on what we can do in these last two games.
“Sometimes that was my critics to all the strikers but we are very productive at home”.
‘Unfortunately I didn’t win the league, even if it would have been the first and last title anyway.
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The Citizens gave Manchester United’s Champions League hopes a new fillip when they suffered a demoralising 4-2 defeat at St. Mary’s Stadium earlier today and created much uncertainly around their position in the top four.
