UEFA Champions League: Pellegrini Preview

Manchester City must win Tuesday against in-form Borussia Mönchengladbach at the Etihad Stadium in oreer to have any shot of avoiding the likes of FC Bayern, Barcelona or Real Madrid in the Round of 16 in the UEFA Champions League. The Blues have been stumbling through the last two months in all competitions with a backlog of injuries.

Manager Manuel Pellegrini addressed the injury issues on Monday as well as looking ahead to the match on Tuesday.

"Sergio has an injury which means he cannot work normally so he needs time to recover," Manuel confirmed. "It's not serious, it's a pain injury.

"We hope he will be back this week but we'll see how he improves in the next day. If he can run with normality, he can work.

"The other players missing are Kompany, Demichelis, Nasri, Zabaleta and Fernando.

"Demichelis has a problem in his tendon which he already had in the last game so I thought it wouldn't be good for him to continue playing. He should be back in 2-3 days.

"We don't have that many players to rest - maybe there will just be two or three changes from Saturday."
"The defeat to Stoke is gone for us. We've analysed it already. It's important for the team to at least do their task and we'll see what Juventus do against Sevilla.

"It's important for the team to finish at the top of the group - our target is just to win our game - we can do nothing about what happens in the other game.

"It's one game more but I hope we are going to have more concentration and do better than we did on Saturday.

"I try to play this game as it's an important game - the most important thing is to be qualified - after that, we have to try to be top of the group.

"Borussia are a team in a very good moment. They've recovered a lot of positions in the Bundesliga. We are going to find tomorrow a very difficult team - not only because they beat Bayern Munich but their results over the last couple of months."