Ruben Dias has issued a rallying name to Manchester Metropolis teammates and supporters with ‘a lot to play for’ in the course of the remaining weeks and months of the marketing campaign.
That message got here off the again of an exit from the UEFA Champions League, bringing an finish to a bitterly disappointing marketing campaign in Europe’s premier membership competitors by the hands of Actual Madrid on the Santiago Bernabeu.
Defeat to the La Liga leaders capped off a string of heavy outcomes within the competitors’s league section leading to a play-off tie with Carlo Ancelotti’s facet, together with a 4-1 loss to Sporting CP and a 4-2 defeat away to Paris Saint-Germain.
Feyenoord was arguably probably the most notable of Manchester Metropolis’s oppositions throughout that league section run because the Dutch facet got here from 3-0 behind on the Etihad Stadium with quarter-hour remaining to attract 3-3 and stun the house crowd.
Now, talking within the aftermath of Metropolis’s UEFA Champions League exit by the hands of Actual Madrid in midweek, the membership’s vice-captain Ruben Dias was quizzed on what the long run holds within the ongoing season, amid ‘a lot to play for’ within the marketing campaign regardless of setbacks.
“Most positively! We’ve qualification for the Champions League to battle for within the Premier League and we should be very clear and sincere about it ourselves; it’s our predominant goal,” the Portugal worldwide stated.
He continued, “Then now we have the FA Cup and everyone knows how particular it’s for all of us, everybody in England. We like trophies, we wish to win, in order that’s the place we need to be.”
Metropolis will seemingly stay hopeful of their possibilities of securing a UEFA Champions League place for subsequent season, with the Premier League more likely to be topic to the top-five positions qualifying groups for the competitors.
Pep Guardiola and his gamers even have a beneficial run-in compared to a few of their challengers for the European locations, and their recruits in the course of the January switch window ought to give them the mandatory power to get throughout the road.
Abdukodir Khusanov has seemed like an immense piece of enterprise in his opening outings for the membership, whereas Nico Gonzalez has impressed throughout his opening phases in taking up Rodri’s function, and Omar Marmoush having scored a hat-trick towards Newcastle United.