Marko Arnautovic, alone, might have scored five, rather than the two that killed off City after just 15 minutes at the Britannia.
Advertisement
In the seventh minute Stoke went ahead as Shaqiri’s mesmerizing stepovers on the right fooled City’s defense and his cross into the six-yard box was neatly tucked home by Arnautovic.
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.
At the Britannia this afternoon City’s defence, which had Martin Demichelis partnered with fellow Argentine Nicolas Otamendi at its heart, looked overwhelmed with Stoke’s multi-pronged attacking threat in Arnautovic, Shaqiri, Bojan and Ibrahim Afellay.
Belgian Kompany has not featured since early November because of a calf injury.
“That was causing Man City problems all day long”.
City are now relying heavily on home games to get the points as Pellegrini will want to sort out his side’s issues as soon as possible.
“When we defend, all the players must be involved in defending”. A lot of teams just sit back and shut up shop against Bayern but we played the way we wanted to play. “We had a game plan as we always do”. We are playing with 13 players in all competitions.
I think we can score more goals but 2-0 and three points is enough.
The Chilean is nearly certain to see out the season unless City suffer a dramatic collapse but many feel the side are under-performing given the expensively assembled talent in Pellegrini’s squad.
“We worked for one other, pressured, made it hard for them to play and dominated the play”.
Manuel Pellegrini insists Manchester City’s latest horror show shouldn’t be blown out of proportion.
Stoke midfielder Xherdan Shaqiri: “We tried this [partnership with Marko Arnautovic] all week in training so we of course are happy that we scored in the game like this”. We were up against a good team but we still needed to retain possession and with the three up top, we certainly had that. “The midfield behind was always pressing, the defenders always had the better of their attack and that’s why we won”.
You know that expression about flair players “being able to do it on a windy day/night in Stoke”?
Advertisement
However, they have reached the semi-finals of the League Cup and the last 16 of the Champions League, with their last group game against Borussia Monchengladbach coming up on Tuesday.
