Manuel Pellegrini admitted Liverpool scored a pair of goals you don’t see every day, but also said his side’s inability to maintain composure on the ball was their downfall in the 2-1 loss to Liverpool.
“I thought that Liver[pool] scored two beautiful goals,” Pellegrini said. “Top corner, very difficult goals, and maybe you don’t do those goals every game, but today they did.”
Yes, he called Liverpool “Liver.” Don’t worry about the rest I guess.
[ RECAP: Relive the action from Anfield as Liverpool downed Manchester City 2-1 ]
Overall, though, he was very upset with how easily his team lost the ball under challenges from the Reds at Anfield.
“In the first half we lost too many balls, especially in the first fifteen minutes,” Pellegrini said. “One of those balls that we lost was one of their goals.”
Throwing Vincent Kompany under the bus. It was pretty bad, as bite-sized Brazilian Philippe Coutinho dispossessed Kompany in his own half in the build-up to Jordan Henderson’s wonder-strike in the 11th minute. Manchester City eventually got it together and equalized before halftime, but the problems persisted after the break.
[ MORE: Three things we learned from Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Manchester City ]
“In the second half we started the first 10 or 15 minutes, we didn’t have it right to match Liverpool, so we tried to change the style of play, but finally they scored the second goal.”
“It is the most important thing why I am concerned. We are losing too many passes. I think that the players we have cannot lose the balls so easy. The problem is the amount of balls that we lost.”