Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has warned visiting CSKA Moscow fans that they must behave themselves at the Etihad for tonight’s Champions League crunch match.
CSKA fans were accused by City midfielder Yaya Toure of racial abusing him in the fixture in Moscow, resulting in Uefa imposing a partial stadium closure on the Russians for their next home match in the competition.
Despite the Chilean’s message, Pellegrini said he would prefer to move on and focus on the football as City aim to qualify for the last 16 for the first time.
“The CSKA fans made a mistake, Uefa acted and gave them the punishment it deserved,” he said at a press conference.
“I hope we can leave this in the past and it will be an example for them.”
Although CSKA think the incident was exaggerated and did not hear any racist abuse at the match, according to manager Leonid Slutsky, City full-back Pablo Zabaleta hopes that it will only be positive news at the end of the match.
“We haven’t had a great record in the Champions League, but I think we’ve been very focused to try to improve our performance in the competition,” he told the club website.
“We don’t expect an easy game because we know they have some very good individual players and they are very good on the counter attack.
“It takes time. We’ve won the FA Cup and the league and the Champions League is against some of the best teams in Europe, but I think we are ready to take a big step forward.”
Image courtesy of MCFC via YouTube, with thanks.
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