• Premier League

Pellegrini: UEFA punishment forced Negredo departure

Alvaro Negredo joined Valencia on loan with a view to a permanent move © Getty Images

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Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has insisted UEFA is to blame for Alvaro Negredo's deadline-day loan move to Valencia.

Pellegrini insisted the decision was in the best interests of the player but alleged that UEFA had forced his hand after punishing the Premier League champions for breaching Financial Fair Play regulations.

Negredo, who only signed for City in 2013, has gone on loan to Valencia for the season, which will lead to a £24 million permanent move to the Spanish club.

Pellegrini explained the Spain international's move by saying that he wanted to return to his home country and is recovering from a foot injury.

However, Pellegrini said the biggest factor was the sanction UEFA placed on City, who were fined £49m, limited to a £49m net spend this summer and saw their Champions League squad cut from 25 to 21 players.

They are allowed to name 17 non-homegrown players in their Premier League squad but just 16 in their European side and Pellegrini suggested Negredo would have been the foreigner to miss out.

"The decision for Alvaro Negredo to go was [made for] two very important reasons," Pellegrini said. "The first was that we have the restriction for the number of the players we can use in the Champions League.

"We have one player more that we cannot use: in this case Alvaro, who was injured, so that was the player who was not going to be on the [squad] list.

"For him, it was very important because he wanted to go back to Spain so I thought it was the best decision for the club but it all starts from the restriction about the number of players. We have restrictions about the amount of players and the money we can spend."

Negredo scored 23 goals in his only season as a City player and his departure means Pellegrini, who prefers to have two players for every position, now only has three specialist centre-forwards in his squad.

Pellegrini added: "It is one striker less so yes it is important but we have Edin Dzeko, Sergio Aguero and Stevan Jovetic and we have other players that we can use behind the striker, so we have other solutions."

Pellegrini criticised Uefa, deeming the sanction on City unfair and shrugging off suggestions that City are lucky as, while they only lose one non-homegrown player from a squad comprised largely of foreigners, they only have to name one club-trained footballer in their 21-man squad.

"We cannot be fortunate when we have any kind of restrictions," he said. "I think it is very important advantage for them [other clubs] when you have to play four competitions to have an important amount of players.

"I think the best thing is to have two players for each position. It is difficult for me to understand the punishment for Financial Fair Play because the club spend money because they wanted to grow. They finished a new training ground. They were a small team and wanted to be a big team but now we have that punishment, that sanction and we have to play with these restrictions."

City were linked with Radamel Falcao as a replacement for Negredo but the Colombian signed for Manchester United instead and Pellegrini said: "I don't talk about players from other clubs."

Besides Negredo, City also loaned out Micah Richards on deadline day with the right-back joining Fiorentina.

Richards, who was City's longest-serving player, complained that he was not afforded enough opportunities last season.

Pellegrini shrugged off his comments. "I never have a response to players through the press. I always speak to the players face to face," he said.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd