City focus on Dortmund, stresses Mancini
Monday, December 3, 2012
Article summary
Roberto Mancini says that Manchester City FC are thinking only about Tuesday's match at Borussia Dortmund, and the fight for third place, despite a big derby looming.
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Manchester City FC coach Roberto Mancini insisted he was "not thinking of the derby" against Manchester United FC on Sunday as his team take on Group D winners Borussia Dortmund with the aim of securing the section's UEFA Europa League berth. Home coach Jürgen Klopp will make some – though not wholesale – changes, having already earned the admiration of Mancini who described Dortmund as "one of the best teams in Europe".
• Dortmund have qualified as group winners due to their head-to-head superiority over Real Madrid CF.
• Manchester City will qualify for the UEFA Europa League round of 32 if they win in Dortmund and AFC Ajax fail to gain victory at Real Madrid CF.
Dortmund
Jürgen Klopp, coach
Sometimes in the Champions League clubs tend to rest players when they are through. We hadn't qualified for a long time and we will not do that. For sure, we will bring in some fresh players, but against City you have to play at a high pace if you want to win. We will make some changes. Moritz Leitner, for example, will start.
The match at City was surely one of the best ever for a BVB team. We were extremely quick, ran extremely well and were tactically very strong. Normally you win such a game, but that was not the case then. As it turned out, it [the 1-1 draw] didn't do us much harm. I can't really say how tomorrow's game will develop because I have no idea how the team will line up.
The squad has huge quality, no matter who is playing, but I also know that the big Manchester derby is coming up this weekend. We will see where their priorities lie. You can't always play like we did in Manchester, but, of course, we should try.
Weekend result
Saturday: FC Bayern München 1-1 Dortmund (Kroos 67; Götze 74)
Weidenfeller; Piszczek, Subotić (Santana 81), Hummels, Schmelzer; S Bender, Gündoğan; Błaszczykowski (Perišić 73), Götze (Schieber 90), Reus; Lewandowski.
• Mario Götze's third goal in four appearances earned a share of the spoils, stretching Dortmund's unbeaten run to 11 games in all competitions but leaving them 11 points adrift of Bayern at the Bundesliga summit.
Team news
Neven Subotić, who went off with a hip problem late on at Bayern, Sebastian Kehl and Sven Bender are definitely out. Götze and Łukasz Piszczek have minor injury problems, while Jakub Błaszczykowski is suffering from a heavy cold.
Man. City
Roberto Mancini, coach
In the Europa League you play on Thursdays, so that's a bit tricky, but we still want to make it and will try everything to go through and then go as far as possible there.
We are disappointed because we wanted to reach the second round. But I believe that there are times when there are teams in football that are better than you and you have to respect that. We have to accept that Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid played better than we did and we'll have to try again next season. But it was not an embarrassment.
Mario Balotelli is here and he can play. So can Edin [Džeko], and we have other strikers in [Carlos] Tévez and [Sergio] Agüero. Yaya [Touré] will not play. We are not thinking of the derby this weekend. We have a difficult match coming up here and we brought all our players except the injured ones. Borussia Dortmund are currently one of the best teams in Europe and we have a difficult match ahead of us.
Weekend result
Saturday: Man. City 1-1 Everton FC (Tévez 43pen; Fellaini 33)
Hart; Maicon, Lescott, Kompany, Kolarov (Zabaleta 7); Yaya Touré, Barry; Silva, Tévez (Agüero 68), Nasri; Džeko (Balotelli 81).
• City extended their unbeaten start to the league campaign to 15 games, which is one more than last season though they have five fewer points than they did at the same stage 12 months ago.
Team news
Aleksandar Kolarov was forced off with a groin strain after seven minutes on Saturday and David Silva (hamstring) joined the injured list subsequently. James Milner and Jack Rodwell (both hamstring), Gaël Clichy (ankle) and Micah Richards (knee) were all sidelined already.
Match fact
• Mancini faced Dortmund as a UC Sampdoria player in the 1989/90 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup second round, scoring an 88th-minute equaliser in a 1-1 away draw before a 2-0 home victory for Samp, who went on to win the trophy.