Manchester City Deserve More Credit, Insists Manuel Pellegrini

Manchester City deserve more credit for their achievements, according to their manager, Manuel Pellegrini.

The Chilean manager oversaw City’s impressive 2-0 victory away at Roma on Wednesday evening, which confirmed their passage to the last 16 of the Champions League.

Goals from Samri Nasri and Pablo Zabeleta helped Manchester City to their integral victory, which, when coupled with Bayern Munich’s 3-0 triumph over CSKA Moscow, meant that they were in the last 16 of the Champions League for only the second time since 1992.

After the game, Pellegrini talked to Sky Sports, via the BBC, and he told them that he believed his team deserved much more acclaim for persevering and ultimately progressing to this stage of the competition.

“This team deserves a little bit more credit than the press gives us. Trust has been key. I had a lot of trust in what we could do.”

There are some soccer experts who believe that Manchester City have actually underachieved over the last few years. Thanks to the money of their billionaire owner, Khaldoon Al Mubarek, Manchester City have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on talent in order to reach the zenith of the sport.

Since Mubarek, who purchased the club alongside the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, took over, Manchester City have only won two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and the league cup. However, they continue to take great strides towards cementing their status as the best side in the English Premier League, and Wednesday’s advancement proves that they are now a force to be reckoned with in Europe, too.

Their form in this season’s Champions League had been rather poor up until their last two games, though. City failed to win their first four encounters in the group stages, but then an impressive 3-2 victory over Bayern Munich in their penultimate game and their 2-0 triumph over Roma confirmed their progression.

Speaking about how he inspired his players, Manuel Pellegrini admitted that he refused to bring up the important individuals that were missing through injury and suspension, and he just reminded them to play the same way that they have been in the last few weeks.

“I said I didn’t want to talk about players not in the team. You must decide to play without Kompany, without Yaya Toure, without Silva, without Aguero… It’s difficult for a team. Before the game, I spoke with the players and I told them I thought we played the worst game of the season against Roma in Manchester. We were sure that, by playing the way we have been in the last few weeks, we could win and we did.”

[Image via Libe]