Pellegrini pleased with ´good result´, despite mistakes

Manuel Pellegrini was pleased with Manchester City’s 2-2 away draw away in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie against Paris Saint-Germain – but admitted two mistakes cost them victory in the French capital.

Kevin De Bruyne and Fernandinho both scored for the Premier League side, cancelling out goals from Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Adrien Rabiot for the hosts.

However, after De Bruyne broke the deadlock, Manchester City were guilty of giving away a soft equaliser before the break. Ibrahimovic only had to block a pass from Fernando to put the ball into an empty net, as goalkeeper Joe Hart was caught out of position.

Pellegrini was also disappointed the officials failed to spot PSG’s Swedish forward standing in an offside position just before they grabbed their second goal of the night through Rabiot.

“Tonight is a good result for us because we drew here and scored two goals,” he told BT Sport.

“But I think we did make a couple of important mistakes that allowed them to score their first goal. Also, unfortunately for us, I think their second goal was offside.

“In the first half, if we wanted to win, we cannot make those kind of mistakes.

“But the team had the personality to try and win the game. We started very well – from the beginning we were trying to score goals.

“The way we play, we are not used to playing to try and draw. We try to win the games from the beginning.

“There were a couple of important things – the offside goal and the mistake – that doesn’t allow us to win this game.”

Despite having two away goals to take into the return leg in Manchester next Tuesday, Pellegrini warned his players they cannot afford to be so careless on home soil.

Their cause will at least be aided by PSG being without both Blaise Matuidi and David Luiz – the pair are ruled out through suspension after picking up yellow cards on Wednesday.

“It was a very close game against a very good team with very good players,” Pellegrini added.

“I said before the game that we always try to win from the beginning. I always say it’s so important to score goals away.

“But it’s a game of 180 minutes. We must be intelligent in that we don’t make mistakes. We must finish this game at home, but it doesn’t matter on what pitch we play on.

“Tonight we played away and it was a good result. But we are playing against a very difficult, very good team.”