Defeat just a small setback, says Pellegrini
MANCHESTER City boss Manuel Pellegrini feels his team’s title chances have not suffered despite defeat to Chelsea in last night’s top of the table clash.
City, without injured stalwarts Sergio Aguero and Fernandinho, missed the chance to return to the top of the Premier League as Branislav Ivanovic’s first-half goal ended an eight-match winning run.
But City remain favourites with bookmakers to be crowned Premier League champions in May and Pellegrini was keen to play down the significance of last night’s result.
“For Chelsea it was a decisive game, for our team it was important, but we are just two points behind Arsenal and we must still do the same things we have been doing so far,” he said. We’ll see in the next 42 points who will do it better.
“It was a very close game, they played very well to win.”
City travel to Norwich on Saturday, victims of a 7-0 thrashing by Pellegrini’s men in November in the fixture which immediately followed a 2-1 defeat by Chelsea.
And Pellegrini insists his players will not struggle to regain motivation after last night’s setback.
“We are not going to have a problem about that,” he said.
“The team is conscious of what we did, what happened.”