Sterling can handle Anfield boos Pellegrini

Sterling can handle Anfield boos  Pellegrini

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has the utmost confidence that Raheem Sterling will cope with the pressure on his return to Anfield to face Liverpool in the Premier League.

Sterling departed Merseyside for Manchester in acrimonious circumstances in July 2015, and missed a number of chances when the two sides faced each other in the League Cup final on Sunday.

The 21-year-old’s every touch was booed by Reds fans at Wembley, but Pellegrini is adamant the England winger will cope with an even more hostile environment on Wednesday.

The Chilean is also hoping City’s and his own experience of winning titles can help drive them on to glory in the Premier League.

Of their three main rivals, only Arsenal have won the title but not since 2004, whilst Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur have never finished top in the Premier League era.

MANUEL PELLEGRINI

“Yes it was a very long game, but for both teams. Both teams will arrive with the same hours of resting between one game and the other one, but every time you win, of course it’s more easy to recover sooner. ”

[No fresh injuries?]

“No. Well, Yaya Toure has a problem, we will see tomorrow if he can play or not.”

“Well I don’t know the way they will react. Of course there’s revenge, it’s another competition, they play at home, so we are sure that we are going to have a very tough game and it will be difficult to win, but we will try to do it from the first minute.

“I think that was very important because sometimes when you miss so many chances to finish the game in 90 minutes and you can’t do it, maybe if you’re not strong in sprit in the group and the commitment to win that title, maybe that can have consequences. But I think the squad responded very well.

“I don’t know for the moment which will be the starting 11 on Wednesday. But one player I am sure will start is Raheem Sterling.”

[So are you pleased with the reaction to the treatment he got?]

“Very pleased.

“He’s a young man, a young player, he’s starting his career. I think he knows how to fight with the pressure, he will receive maybe the same treatment when he arrives at Anfield tomorrow, but I am absolutely sure he can play without any problems, he will be a very important player as he was in the last game.

“It’s all new. It’s a competition where for our team it’s very important to win those three points because I’m sure if we have a successful game on Wednesday we are going to be involved in the title until the end. At the moment I understand we are not the favourites because we have one game less and we are six points behind the leaders but in the Premier League you know how many things can happen. But the most important thing for us is to win the three points.”

[At this stage who do you consider the favourites?]

“No favourites. When you have to play for so many points I don’t think that one team can be favourite. Of course it’s better for the one team that’s at the top of the table, in this case Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal in that order, but it’s the Premier League and it’s difficult to know at the moment who will win.

“Maybe not 100 percent similar [to 2014, when City won the League Cup and the Premier League] but in that season we always had three games in hand that were important amount of points that you were forced to win. That was so important in that season with the character of the team to win it under pressure. Now we have just one game but in that case if we won all the games we were at the top of the table. In this case we must wait for the other teams to lose some points, but the most important thing is to continue the performance that we had in the last two games. So I am sure that we are going to have a final rush.

“When you have the experience of doing it, it’s more easy. When you have the experience of so many years in football seeing what happens every season, of course you must always trust. We are just talking about the first season here that I was manager of this year. I remember two years before when City won the title with Roberto Mancini I don’t remember if they were eight points behind United with five or six games to play. In football everything can happen, you can lose three games in a row and you will be out of the title, you can win three games in a row and you can win it.

“In the way he played the other day he demonstrated that he missed a goal, that can happen to any player, but he worked for 95 minutes, he was always concentrating in the game, he was very difficult for [Nathaniel] Clyne in the one on one, he had three or four important fouls, so he made a complete game. I understand after that game that he can play under pressure without any problems.

“When you are captain of an important team you have a lot of important things as a leader. Everyone reacts after the game in the way they think is best. I’m very glad of the reaction of Vincent [Kompany] to go with the Liverpool players. We talked before the game, it’s so beautiful to play a final and so beautiful to win it and so hard to lose it. Immediately, all the losers are stupid, or made a lot of tactical mistakes during the game, but the difference between winning and losing the title is so slight that it’s important to put yourself into the body of the players who lose the game.”

Report by Reuters

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Liverpool manchester city Raheem Sterling Anfield

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