Manchester City manager, Manuel Pellegrini might have grinded out the result which he was looking for thanks to a rather uncharacteristic performance at Paris, against PSG in the first leg of the Quarter-finals of the Champions League. However he still believes his side are not the favourites to make it to the semis.
“No, we’re not favourites. Not before this game and not after,” he said.
“Between big teams you never have a favourite. It will still be open. ”
“We must not talk about a semi-final, we must play the second leg not thinking we are already qualified. When we qualify, we can talk about other things.” – He further added.
Pellegrini, looks forward to helping Manchester City progress into the semis in his farewell season at Manchester. He is to be succeeded by Pep Guardiola. Despite clinching two valuable away goals at Parc des Princes, Pellegrini believes that the game is there for the taking for both teams
“The game is absolutely open despite the away point and we need to play really well back in Manchester. We are going to play against a very good team. A team which plays the same way if they play home or away” – he said.
The Chilean did take the opportunity to describe the second goal of PSG as offside and clearly the fault of the lineman
“Well I think in the first half we made important mistakes which shouldn’t be made by a club competing on such high level however in the second half PSG’s second goal was not a mistake of the defence, it was a mistake by the lineman”
Manuel did appreciate the courage and fight Manchester City put up to manage an away draw
“After your receive an offside goal, it’s not easy to recover however this team showed personality and they believe in what we do, we always try to play attacking footaball to score and we did just that”
He also praised Kevin De Bruyne’s performance after his return from injury
“Sometimes one player can change a team. He was important before his injury and thankfully he returned the same way,” said Pellegrini.”
City host PSG next week i.e. 12th April in the return leg of the Champions League quarter final.
