Manuel Pellegrini Unsure On Joe Hart Injury

Manchester City lost for the second game in succession as they were outclassed by Juventus in Turin, falling to a 1-0 defeat to leave them staring down the barrel of a tough second round tie against a group victor.

Griezmann scored in the 13th and 65th minutes at the Vicente Calderon Stadium, both times set up by team captain Gabi. This has been a great Champions League match with some very good play.

The result meant Juventus leapfrogged City to top spot in group D and need only a draw from their final game against Spanish side Sevilla on December 8 to go through as group winners.

A first-half strike from Mario Mandzukic saw Juventus, last season’s beaten finalists, into the last 16 after Massimiliano Allegri’s men produced a dominant display in Turin to drop City into second place in Group D at two points adrift.

City were struggling to create an opening but were almost gifted an equaliser when Aguero pounced on a wayward Claudio Marcisio back pass, only to have his efforts smothered by veteran Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.

Pellegrini, who revealed that midfielder David Silva will be assessed today, also added that Manchester City skipper Vincent Kompany will be sidelined for two more weeks.

But even more worrying was an injury to goalkeeper Joe Hart, who limped off with a hamstring problem after 81 minutes.

Scholes recognises numerous same issues in City that his former side United had on a long learning curve between 1994 and 1999, when they finally won the Champions League after a half-decade of frustration, and said they are going through the same process. “Sevilla have to win that game to try to qualify for the Europa League”, said Pellegrini. It is hard to speculate too much on things like this, but City’s mentality in big games must be called into question, at least.

City boss Manuel Pellegrini made a trio of changes from the weekend’s mauling at the hands of Liverpool, bringing in Nicolas Otamendi, Gael Clichy and Fernandinho for Eliaquim Mangala, Aleksandar Kolarov and Raheem Sterling. “There was a desire amongst the team to get back in the game and Juventus were rattled at times”. City will now wait for a full assessment although Hart later described the hamstring problem as “nothing, just a little tight”. I am not unhappy the way we played. We have seven or eight players injured and we will see the medical report to see what team must start on Saturday against Southampton.