Manuel Pellegrini urged his side to turn the page as quickly as possible to move forward from Saturday’s dismal 4-1 defeat at home to Liverpool.
Eliaquim Mangala’s own goal, Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino gave Liverpool an incredible start, before Martin Skrtel secured the win after Sergio Aguero grabbed a City goal on his return.
Pellegrini has insisted the Citizens quickly forget about the game and turn their attention to Wednesday’s Champions League tie away at Juventus.
“We need to turn the page as soon as we can, this performance is not normal,” the Chilean manager said.
“We have difficulty in understanding why we played so badly as a complete team. Defending, attacking, possession – I’ve never seen this team play like we did.
“We all must think what will happen in the future, we have an important game on Wednesday, sometimes it happens in football to play like this.”
Saturday was a dismal day for City, as for only the second time they conceded four goals in a competitive game at the Etihad.
Pellegrini ‘s men struggled in defence without captain Vincent Kompany, who missed the game through injury, and Mangala and Martin Demichelis toiled against Liverpool’s attacking movement.
Kompany remains a doubt for Wednesday’s Champions League clash, alongside instrumental playmaker David Silva and striker Wilfried Bony.
Pellegrini will have some decisions to make regarding his starting line-up for that game after making two half-time substitutions following a dreary first 45 minutes on Saturday.
This included bringing Fabian Delph on for Yaya Toure, and the English midfielder echoed Pellegrini’s statements on quickly switching focus to Wednesday’s game.
“We just never seemed to get going,” Delph said.
“We’ll put this behind us and then look to answer in the next games.
“We have a game in the Champions League next week, so we’ll be looking to get it out of our system pretty fast.”
Image courtesy of Manchester City, via Youtube, with thanks
