• Champions League

Pellegrini: City will fight until the end

Manuel Pellegrini has vowed Manchester City will fight to the end in their bid to qualify for the Champions League knockout stages after a draw with Roma left them facing an uphill task.

The Premier League champions, who had already lost to Bayern Munich, have only taken one point in Group E and are three behind Serie A runners-up Roma, who came from behind to equalise through captain Francesco Totti.

City, who took the lead through Sergio Aguero's fourth-minute penalty, have failed to get out of the group stages in two of the past three seasons and now face back-to-back games against CKSA Moscow.

Manuel Pellegrini defended his decision to start with a 4-4-2 formation after Roma outnumbered Manchester City in midfield © Getty Images

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"We have just one point from six but also we are just three points behind Roma so there are a lot of things [to consider]," Pellegrini told a news conference.

"We hope we can win [the] next game in Russia. We will see what happens against Bayern Munich. We have 12 more points to fight [for] and we will fight to the end to try and qualify."

Pellegrini accepted his side were not at their best, explaining: "We didn't play well, especially in the first half. We didn't play in the way we normally play to score a goal. In the last 20 minutes we were more similar to the team you usually see here."

He also defended his decision to start with a 4-4-2 formation after Roma outnumbered City in midfield, forcing him to change tactics when he brought on Frank Lampard.

"We play a lot of games against strong teams in this way and we do it very well," he added. "Maybe today we were not very accurate with our passing so when we started losing too many balls we did not have enough midfielders to recover."

Ashley Cole, who was playing his first match back in England since joining Roma from Chelsea, hailed the visitors' performance.

"It was a good performance from the boys after going 1-0 down so early in the game and we showed a lot of character, determination and belief in the team," Cole told ITV.

"Maybe we should have won but the boys can be proud of themselves for going up against the [Premier League] champions, a great team.

"We're probably a bit disappointed we didn't win but it's a good point for us."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd