Pellegrini pleased with City’s reaction

 

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini was pleased with the way his
players responded to Saturday’s disappointment with a 4-1 win over
Sunderland in the League Cup on Tuesday.

The Citizens crashed 2-1 to West Ham United in the Premier League on
Saturday, but bounced back to winning ways in the Cup match played at
the Stadium of Light.

City appeared to be up against it, only to stun the home fans into
silence as they took the lead with what was their first real attack of
the game.

Patrick van Aanholt’s challenge on Jesus Navas looked to be just
outside the box, but referee Roger East thought otherwise and awarded
the spot-kick which Sergio Kun Aguero converted with ease to claim his first club
goal in over a month.

Sunderland then fell victim to another sucker punch.

This time it came in the form of a rapid City breakaway in which De
Bruyne and Raheem Sterling exchanged a neat one-two, allowing the former to
drive in on goal and beat Vito Mannone at his near post.

And there was more misery for the former Arsenal goalkeeper seven
minutes later when Sterling’s close-range shot rebounded off the post,
struck him on the back and cannoned into the net.

Sunderland appeared to have no answer to City’s attacking fluency,
especially down the right and on 36 minutes, the game was effectively
over as a contest as the visitors grabbed their fourth.

This time De Bruyne returned the favour for Sterling by playing him in
on goal and the former Liverpool man almost casually bent the ball
wide of Mannone into the far corner.

But when Sunderland did finally make the breakthrough, it came too
late to be anything more than a consolation, Ola Toivonen converting
Yedlin’s cross on 83 minutes.

And Pellegrini says he could not have asked for more from his players.

“You must always respond on the pitch and tonight we did that in every
way possible,” he told reporters after full-time. “I wasn’t worried
about today. I know the team is united and can hurt the opposition.

And after back-to-back defeats against Juventus and West Ham,
Pellegrini was understandably delighted to get back to winning ways.

“We played well, especially in the first half,” he said. “Maybe in the
second half, winning 4-0, we stopped our pace a little bit, but I am
pleased because we started this game after two important defeats in
the Champions League and Premier League.

“It was important to continue in this cup and it was important to try
to win from the first minute.

“We scored four beautiful goals.”

Pellegrini opted to start a host of his big-name players, including
Sterling, De Bruyne, Aguero and Yaya Toure.

De Bruyne and Sterling combined superbly to carve open the Sunderland
defence repeatedly in the first half, and the Chilean reserved special
praise for his two big-name close-season signings.

“Kevin is a very good player and Raheem played very well also,” he
added. “It was useful for both players to be settled in our team.

“It is not easy at the beginning to make the correct movements, but
both of them demonstrated why they are here.”

The City boss went on to reaffirm his high regard for the League Cup
and was able to hand a debut to Manu Garcia midway through the second
half and the highly-rated young Spanish midfielder showed some nice
touches as City cruised through to the next round.

“We won this cup two years ago and it is beautiful to play the final
at Wembley,” he said. “We will continue to try and play strong squads
in this competition.

“We have a lot of players injured so it was not easy to play this game.

“It was important to start with a strong team and then to give minutes
to young players during the game.

“Patrick Roberts, George Evans and Manu Garcia are three young players
that will be part of our squad for the future.

“The game allowed us to make those substitutions.”