Pensive Pellegrini: We lacked intensity, yet again

Manuel Pellegrini has told his Manchester City team to tighten up at the back after conceding two goals in the victory over Viktoria Plzen.

City had already qualified for the knockout stages of the competition so Pellegrini fielded a weakened side at the Etihad Stadium. Plzen equalised twice but goals fromAlvaro Negredo and Edin Dzeko sealed the three points.

Despite winning 4-2, Pellegrini was disappointed with his side’s performance, especially in defence.

“I’m satisfied because we won the game but we didn’t play well, we didn’t play with intensity”, he said via City’s official website.

“I think that we can attack and we can score four goals without giving the other team so many chances.

“One of the most important things to being an attacking team is knowing how to defend and I think on that front, we did very bad tonight.”

The Chilean manager did reserve some pleasant comments for Plzen, though, who he felt performed well after their defeat to Bayern Munich.

“Plzen played a very good game tonight – I watched them against Bayern the other week and I was very impressed with their performance against such a strong team.”

City are second in Group D with one game remaining, against Bayern Munich in Germany.

In half the number of games, Alvaro Negredo has scored as many goals in the Champions League as he has in the Premier League this season (5).