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Man City: Alan Shearer questions Manuel Pellegrini's 'moaning'

Last updated on .From the section Man Citycomments340

Ex-England captain Alan Shearer says he does not understand why Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini is "moaning" about fixture congestion.

Pellegrini started six teenagers in Sunday's 5-1 FA Cup defeat at Chelsea, resting his regulars for Wednesday's Champions League trip to Dynamo Kiev.

"Barcelona played on Saturday and they face Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday," said Shearer.

"It is the same amount of time as City, but they didn't rest any players."

The ex-Newcastle manager added: "I don't get the talk of resting players. City are - and want to be - a very big club on the global stage.

"They've got more resources than anyone. I never see Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo wanting to be left out.

"It seems a big issue in our country."

Man City's four competitions in 11 days
Sunday, 21 February: versus Chelsea in FA Cup fifth round in London
Wednesday, 24 February: versus Dynamo Kiev in Champions League last-16 in Ukraine
Sunday, 28 February: versus Liverpool in the League Cup final in London
Wednesday, 2 March: versus Liverpool in the Premier League at Anfield

Pellegrini insisted he was "forced" to prioritise Wednesday's Champions League trip to Dynamo Kiev and had previously warned he would select a shadow side for the cup tie with Chelsea.

He was true to his word as goals from Diego Costa, Willian, Gary Cahill, Eden Hazard and Bertrand Traore saw Chelsea ease through.

Senior players Jesus Navas, Samir Nasri, Wilfried Bony, Eliaquim Mangala, Fabian Delph, Kevin de Bruyne and Bacary Sagna all missed the game with injury.

Alan Shearer on Man City FA Cup team: 'I don't get resting players'

Pellegrini said: "I don't think I need to make a defence of my team selection. We played two rounds before this and won 3-0 at Norwich City and 4-0 at Aston Villa with strong teams."

City wrote to the Football Association to complain about the scheduling of Sunday's match, which was played three days before City travel to Ukraine.

"We did the correct thing and made the right decision," said Pellegrini. "The club tried everything possible to try and play it at a different time.

"We do not think the Champions League is more important than the FA Cup, but we had no choice."

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340 comments

  • Comment posted by U14327786, at 11:22 22 Feb 2016

    Vote up if you preferred the old BBC Sport homepage and football page.

    I don't know where to look any more, awful design.

  • Comment posted by Dave McGregor, at 09:45 22 Feb 2016

    This is really sad. Todays players are a bunch of pussyfooting, overpaid nancy boys who dive like dying swans at the least touch. Players of the 5o's, 60's, 70's etc would have been embarrassed and mortified to be "rested" from an FA Cup game because they were "tired".

  • Comment posted by modharry, at 09:39 22 Feb 2016

    Shearer is right the top players today play far fewer matches than the players of yesteryear. The English 1st division had a 42 game league season not miserly 38 game season As many FA cup replays as required + league cup replays. Its the European games that have expanded send EC & Uefa cup back to 2 leg knockout no silly group games. The great Liverpool, Forest , Villa sides did not moan.

  • Comment posted by U15088021, at 10:24 22 Feb 2016

    @74. ChelseaBlue

    To be fair though, the Chelsea players had given themselves the first 3 months of the season off to oust Mourinho...and how on earth can you accuse City players of letting their fans down after the disgraceful behaviour of Hazard, Fabregas and Costa earlier this season...

    ...I wouldn't get too carried away about smashing City U18s

  • Comment posted by ChrisGrr, at 09:53 22 Feb 2016

    Give the FA cup winner a champions league place instead of 4th. Teams would take it much more seriously then - and surprise surprise they would suddenly be happy to play their full strength team. That said, clubs should be free to play their second string if they wish - good opportunity for young players.

  • Comment posted by U3246151, at 09:44 22 Feb 2016

    All a bit pathetic. The Liverpool teams of the 70s & 80s won the league and lifted the European Cup (old Champions League) with a squad of 15 players, playing many more games than contemporary counterparts.

    Most premiership side seem to have squads of about 40 - 60 players. You'd think they could put out a competitive team for what is still an important game.

    Anyway...bunch of mercenaries!

  • Comment posted by FootieFan81, at 09:26 22 Feb 2016

    I cannot fathom the Man City line up yesterday. The issue is they have fundamentally thrown away their season by announcing Guardiola. It lessens Pellegrini's authority and puts influential players like Toure out as he know he is likely to be moved on. They may win the league cup but they have no hope of the league or champions league and have thrown away the season.

  • Comment posted by footballgiraffe, at 10:27 22 Feb 2016

    Pellers is angry because the BBC and the fa put TV scheduling ahead of footballing interests. City currently have 8 first team players out injured, and within the next week have to play a champions league game on the other side of Europe and a league cup final next weekend. Would it really have been so hard for the greedy fa or BBC to have moved the fixture to Friday night or Saturday???

  • Comment posted by U16468412, at 11:54 22 Feb 2016

    What's the toughest decision Shearer makes each week.......?

    8 iron or 9 iron......?

  • Comment posted by Colin, at 12:37 22 Feb 2016

    And next week Shearer will be complaining the youngsters don't get a chance to play for the first team.

  • Comment posted by U13716022, at 11:21 22 Feb 2016

    It's all the fault of the over bloated Champions League and Europa League. The sooner these competitions are streamlined back to straight knock out formats the better, rather than countless meaningless games against very weak sides in the far flung corners of Europe.

  • Comment posted by peterft, at 09:50 22 Feb 2016

    If players and managers can't cope with the workload they should have their pay cut. They want the money so they should be able to cope. Sadly the TV schedules/money dictate the fixtures and the FA and PL think more about the money than they do about the fans, players, etc

  • Comment posted by Jeb, at 13:43 22 Feb 2016

    "We do not think the Champions League is more important than the FA Cup, but we had no choice."

    I don't know why everyone has to keep lying about this, pretending to show respect to the competition. Ha! The FA and top clubs stopped showing respect to football in general a long time ago. Admit it, THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE FA CUP BECAUSE OF MONEY.

  • Comment posted by Andy , at 10:10 22 Feb 2016

    These players are paid huge amounts of money and they can't play twice a week cos they're tired.......absolute rubbish
    Most of us work 5 days a week for a miniscule of what those players earn!

  • Comment posted by patroy, at 09:53 22 Feb 2016

    Shearer needs to get out of his ivory tower, manage a club playing 70-80 games a season at a high level and then give his opinion. He never played in a situation of playing so many games in a season. I am not a Man City fan but quite fed up with the load of crap we have to listen to from football pundits who say nothing different than the man in the street but get crazy amounts of money for nout.

  • Comment posted by domestic_dave, at 09:46 22 Feb 2016

    I can't believe it!
    Asking so-called fit young men to play another game within the space of 3-4 days!
    OMG what do they think?

    Seriously, MC have spent billions on lots of players If they have not brought quality in order to inter-change, that is the fault of the Managers etc. who have all lined their pockets.
    A decent academy would have provided strength in depth and players hungry to play

  • Comment posted by Sergio9320, at 13:07 22 Feb 2016

    @226

    Is the correct answer. Whether that would be enough to get our clubs competitive again in Europe or help the national team is debatable though. We should probably also scrap the league cup and bring the FA Cup forward.

    They won't do any of that because it will kill a few cash cows but they will continue to moan about lack of success in Europe and internationally, as if they care.

  • Comment posted by Ad58, at 11:59 22 Feb 2016

    Shearer doesn't have the experience of playing in 4 competitions at any one time so needs to stop harping on about City. If all the players had been fit it would have been a different team out there yesterday. The juniors played some good football, so we have plenty to look forward to in the future.

  • Comment posted by Paul Brooks, at 11:26 22 Feb 2016

    I have some sympathy with the situation BUT actually not a lot. Why? Whenever there is an attempt to reduce the number of games (e.g. Full members cup removed. PL reduced from 40 teams to 28, what do the premier league teams do? Stick another game in. I am amazed nobody not in the cup didn't play a friendly in Dubai! The Champions league increase was also a club wish.

  • Comment posted by K-Dogg, at 11:23 22 Feb 2016

    I don't think it's fair to moan about fixture congestion, it's part and parcel of being successful in tournaments. Assuming he wanted it played on Saturday rather than some whimsical date in the future? However then Chelsea complain about having played mid-week. His issue, which is fair, is a trip to Kiev is a long a55 trip, but that's not really any one's fault. It's unfortunate but that's life.

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