Manuel Pellegrini has put the impetus on his Manchester City team to improve in Europe this season, reports the Mirror.
Known before his arrival to Manchester for his European nouse, by guiding his Villareal and Malaga sides to the latter stages of the competition, the 61-year-old hasn’t had the same kind of luck in the North-West to date.
Having never got past the first knockout phase of the coveted competition, the Chilean boss will be looking for a change in fortunes- third time lucky perhaps.
First time round for Pellegrini, Barcelona vanquished the Blues and then repeated the trick a year later as Luis Suarez was at the double in Manchester before City could even get going, they then went on to win the competition.
What City maybe haven’t had thus far is a kinder draw in the competition. Twice they’ve drawn Barcelona, had a group of death in 2012 and also come up against sides like Bayern Munich and had to go to places like Moscow on Tuesday nights.
With the arrivals of Raheem Sterling, Fabian Delph, Nicolás Otamendi and seemingly Kevin De Bruyne… All have Champions League aspirations and an advancement past the second hurdle this time round would most definitely be viewed as progress.
The arrival of Argentine Nicolás Otamendi from Valencia is being viewed as City throwing down the gauntlet in their quest for European domination. Otamendi provided fans with an excellent lesson in how to tame Lionel Messi and also scored against Real Madrid last season, two European despots that City have had difficulty surpassing in the last few years of the competition.
Pellegrini said on the situation “If we have to improve in one tournament it is the Champions League because the last two seasons we lost to Barcelona.”
He then sensibly added “But we have to think about Real- they stayed 30 years without winning the Champions League. We try to improve all the time, but the Champions League is not easy to win.”
City face a trip to Goodison Park this Sunday to face Everton, where the Citizens have had a mixed bag of results previously and are also aiming to preserve their unbeaten start to the season.
