Manuel Pellegrini not afraid of Champions League second place despite prospect

Pellegrini has Yaya Toure back while Sergio Aguero is still sidelined with a heel injury, although Pellegrini hopes to get him fit for the weekend league clash with Swansea. “We don’t have too many players to rest”.

“Even though we were up against possibly the best team in the world, we went out there determined to win”, said the United States global, who scored Gladbach’s third.

It was a tight game for City in their last European outing away to Juventus, but unless the Italian champions lose away to bottom side Sevilla, the narrow 1-0 defeat in Turin appears to have made all the difference and they face another tricky last 16 assignment.

The Citizens need a win against tonight Borussia Monchengladbach to keep their hopes of finishing first alive.

Pellegrini has a number of established first-teamers injured such as Vincent Kompany, Sergio Aguero, Martin Demichelis and Samir Nasri.

But Goal understands Aguero spent some time on crutches after the injury was assessed the following day, and despite the striker himself tweeting that his problem was “harmless” last week, he appears no closer to a return to action.

“We need to look for different ways to improve this kind of game”, said Pellegrini.

“We must make a balance of the whole season and if you ask me which team I would like to change”. “All the important clubs in Europe have a lot of injuries”, the City manager said. “Maybe if you finish top, you can have a draw against a big team that finished second in its group”.

“If we don’t win, I think we qualify but not in the way we wanted, but after that I don’t think we have to be always pessimistic about the draw”. That statistic is all the more surprising given that Pellegrini moved to strengthen his central defence by spending a combined £64million on Eliaquim Mangala and Nicolás Otamendi in the past 18 months. He should be back in two to three days. “We have the knowledge that we have just taken on and beaten the best team in the world”.

Despite the figures, Pellegrini believes City are capable of defending well without Kompany as they did it towards the end of last season, telling a reporter at the pre match press conference: “No, I don’t agree with your conclusions. There are a lot of things in the future we are not thinking about”.

“We have good facilities and good staff to help us recover as much as we can. We will do everything we can to put on a great display against a great club”.