City verve pleases Pellegrini
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
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Manuel Pellegrini said "movement" was key to Manchester City FC's win at FC Viktoria Plzeň, whose coach Pavel Vrba highlighted the mistakes his side made as being their undoing.
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Pavel Vrba, Plzeň coach
It is never easy to play against good teams like Manchester City. After the opening goal we tried to push forward with more players, but they found space in our defence. The second goal was a real beauty for everybody who saw it in the stadium – it decided the outcome of the match.
My players didn't stop trying to score a consolation goal and please our great crowd, even when we were 3-0 down. Unfortunately we could not manage it. Some of our shots were blocked; other times we weren't in good enough positions.
The quality of opposition is at a different level from our domestic league. I am sorry we lost by three goals, but we cannot afford to make mistakes like we did when the game was goalless – after conceding, it is so difficult.
We had a decent chance at 1-0 down but we did not take it. We were made to pay for this because almost immediately we conceded the second goal. This more or less confirmed the result. [Goalkeeper] Matúš Kozáčik was one of our best players – he conceded three goals but prevented three or four others.
Manuel Pellegrini, City manager
In the first half we had chances to score, but in the second half we played really well. We played with movement and we were able to create space – with ten players behind the ball, it's hard to score.
We know the Champions League is very difficult and there are no easy games. The players recognise that and they will try their best in every match. We don't have a priority. We all know that Manchester City didn't play well in the last Champions League but the Premier League is also very important.
Winning away in the Champions League is a real bonus. These three points might be very important in getting us to the next round. It's also important to get another clean sheet – in five games we have four clean sheets. It's also satisfying to score three goals. Plzeň are a decent team so it wasn't easy.
It was good to have Vincent Kompany back because he has worked very hard in the last few days. I had some doubts in the last ten minutes, I thought about taking him off to rest his legs, but I saw he was playing without a problem so he will be fine for Sunday.
