Manuel Pellegrini demands response from Manchester City after Anfield defeat

03 March 2016 07:24

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has demanded an instant improvement from his side to prevent their title bid going up in smoke.

A 3-0 loss at Liverpool was the first time they have lost three successive Barclays Premier League matches in over seven years and left them 10 points adrift of leaders Leicester, albeit with a match in hand.

But with Manchester United now level on points, West Ham a point behind and Liverpool only six adrift, Pellegrini knows his players have to rouse themselves from their Premier League slump.

"The most important thing is to recover our performance in the Premier League, (and show) the performance we showed in the last two games in the Champions League and the Capital One Cup, and try to win as many points as we can," he said.

"I am not thinking about the title and not thinking about not to qualify for the Champions League.

"It is important to think in the next game (at home to Aston Villa) we need to win because we lost the last three in the Premier League.

"From the beginning (of the match) I saw our team was not fresh.

"We had not recovered from the last week with the Champions League game with the travel from Ukraine and the game on Sunday."

For Liverpool the win was revenge for Sunday's Capital One Cup defeat at Wembley to the same opposition.

It kept alive their interest in the league as fourth place remains tantalisingly within their reach still if they can maintain performances of the level which saw goals from Adam Lallana, James Milner and Roberto Firmino end the contest with an hour gone.

Manager Jurgen Klopp said: "The boys did brilliantly. They were very angry in a positive way. The pressing situation was brilliant, the counter-pressing was good and then we had to score goals and we did."

"Being tired in this moment of the season is nothing to talk about because everybody could be, it was more about the mental thing.

"We lost on Sunday. We had to show a reaction. The most important moment of the season is now.

"We have to take what we can get. We have to stay angry, to strike back in each game.

"We have no points to waste in our time. Everything can happen."

Source: PA