Sergio Aguero is telling his Manchester City teammates that they simply ‘have to win’ when they travel to CSKA Moscow on Wednesday.
The diminutive Argentine played a role in each of the three Manchester City goals as the City strolled to a comfortable 3-1 at West Ham on Saturday evening.
And after two consecutive years of Champions League misery, Aguero is keen the Blues do not drop to third in Group D.
“We have to win, don’t we?” Aguero told City TV.
“It is an important three points because then we play them (at) home.
“We won against West Ham away in the Premier League and now we have to win away in Moscow as well.
“It was very important to win against West Ham and we have to keep winning away matches. We have to continue.”
City may struggle to repeat their weekend’s performance in Moscow as UEFA have concerns about the playing surface.
UEFA sent a group of experts to inspect the pitch at CSKA’s temporary home Arena Khimki, after the Russian side were forced to play their opening home game against Viktoria Plzen in St Petersburg.
CSKA have to play at a temporary stadium due to the rebuilding of the Luzhniki Stadium for the 2018 World Cup.
Part of the surface at their temporary home had to be re-laid after heavy rainfall made it unplayable.
Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini is in the dark over the current state of the pitch.
“We don’t know what the condition of the pitch will be,” he said.
“We hope that UEFA allowed them to play the game there because it is a good pitch.”
Speaking after the weekend fixture, the Manchester City manager acknowledged the importance of his side’s first away league win and hopes to claw back points lost earlier in the season against Chelsea next weekend.
“Getting three points today was the most important thing for us. I think he team played very, very well and we scored three great goals,” said the Chilean.
“We knew before the game started that Chelsea and Arsenal had won their game, so it was very important for us to do the same as we must be a maximum of three points behind the leaders after today.
“We will try the next time we play away, against Chelsea, to recover the points we lost at the beginning of the Premier League.”
Image courtesy of YahooUK video, with thanks.
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