Related News
Pellegrini eyes Euro success
Print Edition
MANCHESTER City manager Manuel Pellegrini switched his focus to conquering Europe yesterday after his side’s Premier League ambitions took another dent at the weekend.
City’s barnstorming start to the English soccer season, producing five straight wins, is in danger of becoming a fading memory after consecutive defeats by West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur allowed Manchester United to knock it off the top of the table.
Those two defeats were preceded by a jolting home loss to Juventus in City’s Champions League opener, but Pellegrini is convinced the club will recover and soon triumph in Europe’s blue riband competition.
“I am sure that Manchester City will win the Champions League in the future because the whole club works well,” the Chilean was quoted as saying in the Manchester Evening News.
“We are younger than the teams who normally win the Champions League over the last 10 years. Our team has only arrived in the last few years and we are improving each season.”
City’s huge transfer spending to become established as one of the Premier League giants has not translated into any great impact on the European stage. It reached the last 16 of the Champions League in the past two seasons and failed to progress beyond the group stage in the previous two attempts.
While focused on improving that record, Pellegrini says the Champions League should not be prioritized at the expense of getting its domestic form back on track. “Being champions of Europe must not be an obsession here. Manchester United, in the whole period of Alex Ferguson, when he was the best manager in the club’s history, only won the Champions League twice in 27 years,” Pellegrini said.
On Saturday, United beat Sunderland 3-0 while City lost 1-4 at Tottenham Hotspur.
Memphis Depay scored his first ever Premier League goal and Wayne Rooney notched his first league goal of the season as United went top for the first time since August 2013. With 16 points from seven games, United is a point ahead of City.
Elsewhere on Saturday, it was: Newcastle 2, Chelsea 2; West Ham 2, Norwich 2; Leicester 2, Arsenal 5; Liverpool 3, Aston 2; Southampton 3, Swansea 1; and Stoke 2, Bournemouth 2-1.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
