Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini admits that he was frustrated with the defensive performance of his side in their 4-2 loss at Southampton.
The Citizens gave Manchester United’s Champions League hopes a new fillip when they suffered a demoralising 4-2 defeat at St. Mary’s Stadium earlier today and created much uncertainly around their position in the top four.
Sadio Mane scored a hat-trick as Manchester City’s defence gave a lackadaisical account of themselves just ahead of their Champions League semi-final second clash against Real Madrid on Wednesday.
While he is not too pleased with the performance of his defenders, Pellegrini feels he could have named a full-strength line-up had they played yesterday, but he had to prioritise their Madrid trip.
The Manchester City manager told the BBC: "I'm very frustrated because I didn’t expect that performance – especially in defence. At least four of them [today’s line-up] are not playing [regularly].
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"I think we could've played on Saturday and named a stronger team. But in this case we had to prioritise Wednesday's game [against Real Madrid].
"The best way to prepare is to win but we couldn’t do it."
While Manchester City remained four points clear of Manchester United in fourth, Louis van Gaal’s men have a game in hand and the Citizens will host fellow top four contenders Arsenal at the Etihad next Sunday.
