Manuel Pellegrini was unhappy with Manchester City’s front players after seeing his team’s immaculate start to the season ended by going down 2-1 at home to Juventus in the first game of their Champions League campaign.
The result leaves them, once again, facing a considerable battle to make it through their group. They have only three wins in their last 12 home games in the competition, and there is the now familiar sense that they lack the knowhow to cope against the leading European teams.
They had led courtesy of Giorgio Chiellini’s own goal but Mario Mandzukic and Álvaro Morata turned the game upside down in the last 20 minutes and Pellegrini reflected on two chances for Raheem Sterling, the second of which could have given them a 2-0 lead. Gianluigi Buffon saved them both but City’s manager felt the £44m signing should have been more clinical.
“When we have chances we must score because this is the Champions League,” Pellegrini said. “If you have clear chances and don’t score … the differences are very slight, especially against a strong team like Juventus. Maybe Juventus didn’t create so many chances as us but they had strong finishes.”
A bad night for the Premier League leaders was exacerbated by Vincent Kompany suffering a calf injury – City’s captain will have a scan on Wednesday – but Pellegrini pointed out that they had recovered before from losing starts.
“The last two seasons we started the same way, losing the first game, and qualified for the next stage. We are just starting. We never want to lose at home and we never want to lose important points but we have 15 more points to play for. It depends on the way we play the next games. We have to play against Juventus in Italy and we have another four games.”
Juventus have not won any of their three games in Serie A and their manager, Massimiliano Allegri, praised his players for not losing confidence despite their poor start to the season. “I think the players played extremely well. We defended in a very disciplined way and we played very well in attack. I think we were very compact and the players have shown a great deal of character. They were well disciplined and had lots of confidence even when they were losing 1-0. I think we deserved it.”
