James Milner has confirmed that Manchester City were not actually aware of how many goals they needed to score to top their Champions League group during their 3-2 defeat of European champions Bayern Munich.
Milner scored the winner as City won having been two goals down, but Manuel Pellegrini appeared to get his maths in a muddle during his post-match interview.
The England winner confirmed that this was indeed the case and not something that as lost in translation for the Chilean, who has a University degree in civil engineering which has earned him the nickame ‘The Engineer’.
“We knew roughly [how many we needed],” said Milner.
“We didn’t know if 4-2 would be enough or if we would need 5-2. We thought it needed to be 5-2, to be honest.”
After City had taken the lead, Pellegrini took the bizarre step of taking off striker Edin Dzeko and replacing him with the defensive-minded Jack Rodwell.
The manager was quizzed about the substitution and whether he was tempted to bring on top-scorer Sergio Aguero.
“It was difficult to score two goals and I think that Silva had to play not more than 70 minutes,” Pellegrini told Sky Sports.
“I was tempted if we scored the fourth goal – of course that’s why I sent Agüero to warm up.”
This was where the confusion arose as it was just a fourth goal would have been enough, making the need for their Argentine forward non-existent.
Despite the baffling error, Milner is taking the positives from a stunning result and believes that they can use it to gain confidence in what will be an inevitably tough knockout tie.
“It shows the character we have in the dressing room to come back from two down and win against a very good team. It is a massive result for us going forward,” he said.
“We are going to come up against another top team like Bayern in the next round so the confidence we have gained will obviously go a long way.”
Barcelona, both Madrid teams and PSG are potential opponents for the Citizens after their second place finish.
Image courtesy of Blues City TV, with thanks.
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