Pellegrini wants City back on track

Let’s all be honest, we should’ve beaten Juventus handily, we had the opportunities to do so and given Juventus’ form, it seems as if the game from a fortnight ago was just an anomaly to their otherwise shoddy start to the season.

Despite being knocked out of the Champions League in the last 16 in the previous two campaigns, Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini does not believe his side have failed in Europe.

“We need to get back to the first five games of the Premier League season, where we were more of a balanced team”, Hart said.

City goalkeeper Joe Hart turned in his latest inspired European performance, saving a penalty from Raffael in the 19th minute and frustrating the Brazilian forward on a host of other occasions.

The manager, who embarrassingly had to return home for his passport before boarding his flight to Düsseldorf, pointed to how since he took over City have always reached the last 16.

Borussia Mönchengladbach may be one of the famous names in Europe but they are the weakest team in what for City is another hard group.

The loss of centre-back Kompany is arguably the biggest blow, but Pellegrini says they will cope, even though the Belgium global is unlikely to be fit for his country’s Euro 2016 qualifiers against Andorra and Israel.

No sooner had the ghosts of Günter Netzer and Berti Vogts been stirred than Borussia fell apart, losing six successive games, which triggered Favre’s resignation and his replacement by André Schubert, coach of the Under-23 side, as a caretaker.

The influential defender has missed City’s last three games with a calf injury and will not travel to Germany with the rest of the squad.

“I still think we deserved to win“.

“I don’t think we have failed in Europe”, Pellegrini told reporters.

The game was marred by a plethora of questionable decisions by the linesmen, with three of the five goals scored – including De Bruyne’s opener for City – borderline offside.

“Of course Vincent is a very important player, he is our captain and he has started the season very well, but I don’t think one player is crucial”, said Pellegrini. With 65 minutes played, both teams had chances to score.

City were left rather short-handed in midfield in the first half against Monchengladbach, with Pellegrini deciding to field an attacking quartet of Raheem Sterling, David Silva, Sergio Aguero and Kevin de Bruyne together in a starting line-up for the first time.