Man City boss Manuel Pellegrini praises Yaya Toure and Raheem Sterling
Tuesday 11 August 2015 20:18, UK
Manuel Pellegrini was happy with the performances of Yaya Toure and Raheem Sterling as Manchester City got off to a winning start with a 3-0 victory over West Brom on Monday.
Two first-half goals from Toure and a second-half effort by Vincent Kompany saw City run out comfortable winners at the Hawthorns and their manager was glad to capitalise on slip-ups by Chelsea and Arsenal over the weekend.
"It’s very important to start the season winning," Pellegrini told Sky Sports.
"We were the last game of the first weekend and what’s important after knowing the other results is to win - to win away and to win in the way we did, scoring goals as a consistent team without giving West Brom any chances to score.
"I’m always pleased when my teams score. I like attacking football and I like to see good players playing in a technical way. In the first 30 minutes we did that very well.
"After that, when you have scored goals, it’s important to score more goals but it’s also important to not be an imbalanced team and to be organised. So we also kept the clean sheet which is also important.”
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Sterling made his debut following his £49m move from Liverpool in the summer and while the youngster was not the star of the show, Pellegrini was encouraged by his performance.
"He had two clear chances to score," added the City boss. "But Raheem is just starting to play with new mates in a new way of playing. Maybe it was not his best performance but he played 65 to 70 minutes in a good way."
It was Silva who earned the man-of-the-match award but Pellegrini also praised fellow midfielder Toure and suggested the Ivorian could rediscover the form of 2013/14 when he scored 20 Premier League goals to help fire City to the title.
"I enjoy when technical players play in a technical way," added Pellegrini. "David Silva played a brilliant performance, especially in the first half, and not making any mistakes.
"With Yaya, I think we will see the return of the Yaya of one season ago, not last season when he had so many problems."
City’s next game is against Premier League champions Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday but Pellegrini insists he’ll be taking it one game at a time this season.
"Our team must be very focused in going game by game," he said. "Tomorrow we focus on Chelsea. In the Premier League, every point that you start winning at the beginning is just as important as at the end."
Whether reported target Kevin De Bruyne could be a Manchester City player by then is unclear with Pellegrini unwilling to be drawn.
"We are involved in four competitions so we will have a good squad and maybe improve a bit more," he added. "Players who are at top clubs, nobody wants to sell them. We will see at the end of August."
