Premier League: Manchester City vs Southampton (28/11/2015)

The Saints boss does not think Manchester City will be feeling the pressure in Saturday's Premier League match, despite back-to-back defeats



Southampton manager Ronald Koeman thinks opponents Manchester City are used to coping with criticism as they go into Saturday's Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium under pressure.

Manuel Pellegrini's men are on a poor run having drawn with bottom-of-the-table Aston Villa before suffering consecutive defeats at the hands of Liverpool and Juventus.

Southampton lost to Stoke City last week, but that negative result came after an impressive eight-match unbeaten run in all competitions.

Koeman, though, does not feel his side have any major advantage going into the game, despite the scrutiny over City's form, and sympathised with Pellegrini's long injury list.

"Teams like City are used to having that pressure about winning games and if you don't win as a big team there are always critics," he said.

"But I think one of the reasons is they have some big injuries in key players and even for a team like City it is difficult for them to handle that with all the number of games that they have to play.

"Pablo Zabaleta, David Silva, Vincent Kompany, Sergio Aguero was a long time out. We have problems when we have some players not available, but also they have some problems."

One area Koeman feels Southampton could benefit from, though, is the fact City have had a match and a trip to Italy this week while his team have not had a game.

He continued: "It is possible that we will be fresher for the last part of the game.

"So if it is still a good result for us at that moment it could be tougher for them in the last 20 minutes.

"But then you have to play the first 70 minutes at a high level to be ahead or even be drawing the game at that moment."