BPL: WBA 0-3 Manchester City
Coach Manuel Pellegrini reacts:
“It is very important to start the season with a win and to win in the way we did – scoring goals and playing as a very consistent team without giving West Brom any real chances to score – is pleasing.
“I am always pleased when my team score. I like attacking football and I like to see good players attack well. For the first 30 minutes, we played very well.
“Even after you score goals, it is important to continue to play attacking football – but not with an unbalanced team. For me, it was also important to keep a clean sheet.
“I enjoy seeing technical players play well. David really played well – especially in the first-half. It was an unbelievable performance. He did not make any mistakes.
“I also think we will see the Yaya of one season ago – not last season when he had many problems.
“All of our technical players played very well.”
Captain Vincent Company comments on the win:
“There are a lot of ‘favourites’ for the title and apparently, we’re not one of them so this was a great way to start.
“That’s something which gives us extra motivation – we came out with a point to prove.
“Last week, when we played against Stuttgart, it was a really poor performance and that was actually a good thing for us because we knew we had to work on a lot of things.
“If you look at the training sessions we did last week, you’ll see this is a team with a lot of intensity. Seeing the faces, I knew the team would be ready for this game.”
On Sterling..
“Raheem has given us his sharpness and speed to hurt teams when we are defending and have our backs against the wall.
“It gives the other team something to think about. If a full-back wants to push up, they might not want to go all the way forward if they knew what they have on their back.
“It gives us that little bit of danger we need. We have to be offensive so to have players like this is really important.”
