Manuel Pellegrini lost his first match in charge of Manchester City and then confirmed that Maicon has played his last game for the club.The Brazilian defender, who turns 32 next week, has had a desperately disappointing career at City, making just 13 appearances since arriving from Inter Milan for £3.5million last summer.
He was left at home when City flew out for their pre-season tour of South Africa and is now set to returnto Italy after Roma tabled an offer in the region of £4m.
Pellegrini said: 'Maicon didn't come here to the pre-season and he will not stay in the squad at Manchester City this year.' City's new boss is keen to bring in more strikers after a 2-0 defeat to SuperSport United in the opening tour game in Pretoria highlighted his lack of options in attack following the departures of Mario Balotelliand Carlos Tevez.
City hope to conclude a deal for Sevilla's Alvaro Negredo later this week with Fiorentina forward Stevan Jovetic another top target.
'We are working on new players that can arrive at Manchester City,'added Pellegrini. 'We are not in a hurry to bring them now but we are clear that we need two or three more players.
'It's important to have a very good squad. I said before we came to South Africa that we needed to play for each position and that's what we are looking for and I'm sure that we will have it.
'It's difficult to say a date but before July finishes I think we will have more players.'
The Chilean was not too concerned about losing his first match in charge as City headed back to their Durban training base ahead of Thursday's second game there against AmaZulu FC.
Pellegrini fielded an entirely different team at half-time and saw City concede two second-half goals to a club that finished sixth in the South African Premier League last season.
He said: 'We are just starting the season so it's not always important to win but for us it's important to give minutes to the whole squad.
The players were clear with what they had to do in this game. I spoke with them before the match and we had four or five days working.
'The first match is important but not to change all our preparations for the season to give our best in the first game.
We're not prepared to play the way we want them to play so this was a normal match for pre-season. I'm not worried and this is what we expected.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2363114/Manuel-Pellegrini-confirms-Maicon-departure-Manchester-City-boss-seeks-boost-attacking-options.html [ 此帖被barrin在2013-07-15 01:16重新編輯 ]
