Manuel Pellegrini hails Manchester City League Cup win over Sunderland

Sergio Aguero celebrates scoring the opening goal from the penalty spot with Aleksandar Kolarov

Manuel Pellegrini said it was important for Manchester City to recover from back-to-back defeats by beating Sunderland.

City were beaten by Juventus in the Champions League and West Ham in the Premier League last week and their manager responded by naming a near full-strength side for the trip to the Stadium of Light; Willy Caballero replacing Joe Hart in goal and Fernando coming in for Fernandinho the only notable changes.
    
And Pellegrini was rewarded with a thumping 4-1 Capital One Cup third-round win including first-half goals from Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling.

He said: "Really it was important to win the way we did today because we have just come from two important defeats, one in the Champions League and the other in the Premier League, so it was important to start this Capital One Cup in the way that we did in the first half.

"It's important to win. Maybe we didn't deserve to lose the two games that we lost, but we did, so it was important not to continue in that sense."

Sunderland's fate was decided inside 26 catastrophic first-half minutes as an Aguero penalty, De Bruyne's strike, a Vito Mannone own goal and Sterling's 36th-minute effort gave the visitors an unassailable lead.

However, Pellegrini was unwilling to label his front three as the best in the country.

He said: "We will see. We have a lot of games to play in the league. They are very good players and at the end of the season, we will see which are the best players in the league.




"It's important now to be focusing game-by-game and not to think about individual players."