Man City star still struggling with injury to miss next two games

Manuel Pellegrini left the Britannia Stadium on Saturday bemoaning a jaded performance by his Manchester City players but he does not expect to make significant changes for Tuesday’s Champions League match against Borussia Mönchengladbach.

City worrying run of form has included a heavy home loss to Liverpool while a surprise defeat at Stoke on Saturday knocked them off the top of the Premier League table.

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 on Tuesday.

City were group runners-up in their two previous European campaigns, earning the dubious reward each time of a last-16 tie against Barcelona.

Pellegrini says they could face Paris St Germain if they come top and insists rivals Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea would love to be like them – already qualified.

“I don’t think we always have to be pessimistic about the draw”.

“Conditions were tough but that’s English football – I said before the game no-one would be able to walk of the pitch with an excuse. The whole season there are a lot of games we played without our important players”, he added. Last season we finished the last six games without Vincent Kompany.

“We don’t have a priority to get any one player back in the team in particular – we have five or six key injuries and I don’t think we will have any of them back this week”.

“I always miss important names but you have to play with the players you have”.

“It will be the fifth game we have play in less than 15 days, and in a couple of them we have had 72 hours to recover”. We were courageous and unlike a lot of other teams, we didn’t sit back. “We play very bad because we are playing with the same 12, 13 players, and nothing much more happens”.

Several other senior players are still missing, however, including captain Vincent Kompany, fellow defenders Martin Demichelis and Pablo Zabaleta, midfielders Fernando and Samir Nasri and striker Sergio Aguero.

In these games, City concede an average of half a goal a match.

“On the day we were exceptional”, he said afterwards. It’s important for the team to at least do their task and we’ll see what Juventus do against Sevilla.

Pellegrini cited too many games, a lack of preparation time and the global breaks as possible reasons for their flat showing against Hughes’ side, but denied they are lacking figureheads in the absence of Kompany, Toure and Aguero.