After a first half that represented a return to the flat Manchester City of last season the usually relaxed Manuel Pellegrini was irate. In the dressingroom at the interval the Chilean let his players know that to trail 2-0 to a 16th-placed Championship club was just not on.
“I was very angry because I know what happens in these kind of games if you play the way we did,” the manager said. “I didn’t lose my temper – it’s important to think of the best way to react for the team. [This]was another way because I felt the team needed something else.”
Pellegrini said it had been his side’s poorest half of the season.
"We didn't create any chances, they scored two goals and had at least two more chances. We were always very open to the counter-attack and we didn't have a lot of movement to create space," he said.
Quadruple dream
After Fernando Forestieri and Troy Deeney had both taken full advantage of poor defending from Martin Demichelis, City were staring at the end of their quadruple dream. Yet Pellegrini drew the response he required by introducing Vincent Kompany for Jack Rodwell – pushing Demichelis into the latter's midfield berth – and Pablo Zabaleta for Micah Richards.
It pleased him. “Yes, of course. I changed just two [players] but we changed absolutely the character of the team,” Pellegrini said. “I think maybe in the first half we didn’t give 100 per cent and that’s impossible in football today.”
City’s comeback was an illustration of how Pellegrini has mentally reinvigorated players who last season might have folded. “That’s why it’s a touch of attention warning for the team, a lesson for the whole squad,” he said. “This experience will happen every year in cup games. But the most important thing is the way they react and that gives me another way that this team can win.”
It helps, of course, to have a player of Sergio Aguero’s calibre. After a month out with a calf injury, the Argentinian striker resumed the flying form of beforehand and his second-half hat-trick made it five goals in three appearances since returning. He has now scored 25 goals in 24 matches and Pellegrini believes he could soon join Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as one of the world’s very best.
Pellegrini added: “It wasn’t easy for Sergio to come back from his injury. That’s why I said it was not the idea to give him 90 minutes but we needed him the whole match and he played without a problem.
“He makes the difference. In two or three matches he will continue improving because it’s always difficult to come back from a calf injury. He’s a very young player who has a lot of things to improve. He has the quality to be among the best players but that depends on what he wants to reach in his career.”
Aguero’s first two efforts drew City level before Aleksandar Kolarov’s 25-yard pot-shot squirmed through the hands of the Watford goalkeeper, Jonathan Bond. It was then left to Aguero to complete the victory with a far-post header.
Steven Jovetic came on for Marcos Lopes in the 57th minute to continue his comeback from the injury nightmare that has blighted the start of his City career.
“It’s been so difficult. I got one injury, then another,” he said. “I didn’t start at the beginning of the pre-season, so when I played games I was always a bit behind everyone else.
"All this time I've been working hard, in the gym, outside. But now finally I feel good and ready to help. –
Guardian Service
