Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini admitted that it would be inexcusable if his players were unable to win any trophies this season.
The Sky Blues have made a perfect start to their League campaign after winning all four of their opening fixtures, scoring 10 goals and conceding none in the process. On Saturday, City beat newly promoted Watford through two second half goals scored by Raheem Sterling and Fernandinho as they coasted to a 2-0 win.
City must win titles this season
With Kevin De Bruyne having joined the club in a deal believed to be in the region of A?58m deal, Citya s net spending in the summer is expected to surpass A?150m. Keeping their transfer activity and recent form in mind, Pellegrini declared that winning titles this season was a must for the club.
a Last season we had some restrictions [on spending] but I didna t give any excuse not to win the titlea , said Pellegrini.
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a This team must try to win titles every year. Ita s not so easy because you have strong teams here in the Premier League and in the Champions League.
a But we must try to do it. The best way to at least try is to have a good squad.
a Thata s what we are trying to do now and we finish on Tuesday when the transfer window is closed. After that you need to know how to play in the way we are doing.
“Ita s very important to have a good performance as players and as a team. So with more players or without players, I never had excuses about not winning titles.”
Tactical switch at half time paid dividends
After a goal less first half, Pellegrini took off the ineffective Jesus Navas and brought on Samir Nasri at half time. This switch allowed Sterling to move up alongside Aguero in attack and David Silva to shift on the right side of midfield.
This move paid dividends almost immediately as Sterling latched onto Sagnaa s cross to open his account for City barely two minutes after the half time interval.
“I think it was important at half-time to make a change, we had a lot of possession but didna t create many chances, because – especially against Raheem – they had very tight marking”, he said.
“I think that making that change with Nasri on the left side, making David [Silva] more free on their left side, where they have less markers, and playing Kun [Aguero] with Raheem is the way that we must try, and especially at the start of the first half when they didn’t know what we were going to do.
“So we changed, some of you asked me last press conference if playing 4-2-3-1 was the reason why we are winning, but today we returned to 4-4-2 in order to win. So I think tactics is not the problem, it’s the performance of the players.”