• Champions League

Pellegrini: Munich maths mix-up my fault

Manuel Pellegrini did not realise a 4-2 win at Bayern Munich would see Manchester City top their group © Getty Images

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Manuel Pellegrini has accepted responsibility and apologised for his mathematical mix-up in Munich that is set to land Manchester City one of European football's big guns in the Champions League knockout stages.

The City boss didn't realise that a 4-2 win would have meant his side topped their Champions League group.

But Pellegrini insists he does not have a guilty conscience and believes his side's chances of progressing to the quarter-finals have not been dented by finishing second in their pool - even though it means they will face Real Madrid, Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Atletico Madrid or Paris Saint-Germain in the last 16.

City, who had lost 3-1 at home to Bayern Munich in October, required victory by three clear goals or two goals in a high-scoring match to finish ahead of the defending champions, but ended up winning 3-2 to be the runners-up.

And Pellegrini confessed that after Bayern rushed into a 2-0 lead with goals from Thomas Mueller and Mario Gotze, he forgot that 4-2 would have sufficed for his side.

He said of his error: "It shouldn't have happened. Before the match I knew we had to win 3-0 because we needed one goal more [on aggregate] than they scored here [at the Etihad Stadium]. After when they scored the first goal, I continued [thinking] that 3-1 was not enough because they had a better goal difference so I continued [to think] that we had to win by three goals, 3-0 or 4-1.

"After when they scored the second goal, I didn't continue thinking about what happened if we scored four goals. That was my mistake because not many teams score four goals against Bayern Munich. I tried to think better about how to arrange the game that we were losing 2-0.

"First of all I recognise absolutely my mistake but I don't have a guilty conscience about what we did because we always tried to score the fourth goal."

Pellegrini argued his substitutions were proof that his side were being positive and were aiming to get a fourth goal, even if he did not realise its significance. He had always planned to bring off David Silva, who was making his first appearance for a month, but replaced him with striker Alvaro Negredo, rather than a defender.

However, he was criticised for using his third substitution to bring on midfielder Jack Rodwell instead of top scorer Sergio Aguero when Edin Dzeko went off.

He added: "Remember that I changed Silva after 70 minutes for Negredo, not for [Vincent] Kompany, not for [Dedryck] Boyata, so we continued with two strikers trying to score.

"In the last five or seven minutes, Bayern Munich had 80 percent of possession so we tried with Rodwell to recover the ball, to attack, not to defend. I apologise for me and the team that we couldn't score four goals against Bayern Munich."

City will discover their opponents in the last 16 in Monday's draw but Pellegrini insists they will approach a tie with one of the favourites with no fear and no regrets.

Pellegrini added: "I am not afraid of who we are going to play in the round of 16. I don't believe some teams are weaker than the other teams. I believe the 16 best teams in Europe are all exactly the same for us. I think the trust the team has after beating Bayern Munich in their own stadium is much, much more important than being first in the group."

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