Roberto Martinez praised Roberto Mancini’s Manchester City project but bemoaned his Wigan side’s lack of belief against City as they were beaten 3-0 at the Etihad Stadium.
“It’s fair to say that Man City have earned their status now as title challengers.” said the Spaniard. “From our point of view when you come to places like this you need to be perfect and I don’t think we were. We were far away from what we can be.”
“If you don’t perform at your best the quality of the opposition will show.” admitted Martinez, “I was disappointed with the level of performance today. We never believed we would get a result. We needed to believe that we could beat the names of Manchester City.”
“They are a special team and earned respect around the league and in European football and you need to overcome that but from our point of view we are disappointed with our performance.”
“They don’t play in straight lines and they have a fantastic football awareness. They are wonderful players to watch. The understanding between Silva, Aguero and Tevez makes them very difficult to stop.”
“Three years ago, under Frank Rijkaard, Barcelona showed flashes of the side that you see today. In three years time you’ll be able to compare City with the Barcelona of today but they’ll have to win many titles and play many games together.”
“We all know they’ve got world class players but the way they play as a team is a joy to watch.
“We’ve come a long way and our football performance was strong but it’s hard to get a result if you don’t have the belief.
“With the quality they have on the pitch and the size of their squad it’s fair to say that they will be strong in every competition but you are only playing against 11 bodies on the pitch and I think we gave them too much respect.
“From our point of view it was a tough lesson but we’ve still done a few good things that we will take into the next few games.”