Pablo Zabaleta believes if Manchester City fail to defeat Roma in evening’s crucial final Champions League group match they deserve to be knocked out.
City travel to the Italian capital level on five points with Roma and CSKA Moscow knowing if they win and the Russian champions fail to beat Bayern Munich they will reach the last 16.
Asked whether if City would have no argument at not progressing, Zabaleta said: “Of course, because we have the players to beat Roma. If we don’t beat them and we don’t go through it would be bad for the team because we want to be there. You never know, football is like that sometimes. You’re in the best moment and then you have a bad game. But when the confidence is high, you have more trust in yourself and we’re playing more as a team – that’s important to win it.”
In the reverse fixture City could only draw 1-1 but after a run of five consecutive wins Zabaleta feels they are now a different proposition. “We are a much better team now than when we played Roma at home,” he added. “Confidence is high and that is what we need to play against Roma and win the game. We know it’s a crucial game to go through to the next round.
“Rome is always a very difficult place to go and win. They have a very good team and they’re second in the league. If we continue playing in this way we’ll have a good chance to qualify.”
What was the key factor in getting confidence back? “We were talking about defence because we knew that we weren’t defending well. We had a lot of meetings with the manager, watching videos. The manager was the key because he’d been talking with the whole team. After the World Cup it’s a very difficult year to build yourself physically and mentally.
“All we’ve done is work harder in the week and criticised ourselves to do better. We know the team we are, we needed to return to our best form, and we had enough quality in that team to win games, but we had to work more as a team. It was probably the key that made the team improve in the last few weeks and that’s why we’ve won crucial games.”
If City do emerge from the group, Zabaleta claims they can go far. “Of course. I think the Champions League is probably the competition that at the moment we weren’t performing well enough to go further than what we have expected in the last few years. The draw has always been difficult for us. This team is learning about a lot of things and the Champions League is a competition where you play against the best teams in Europe. If you make mistakes then you’re out.
“Roma is a crucial game for us to show that we want to continue and go far. The quality is there to do this and hopefully we can play a great game and go through.”
