Nasri happy with ‘revenge’ mission

SAMIR Nasri admits wounded pride was the chief motivation for Manchester City’s FA Cup defeat of Chelsea.

City turned the tables on Chelsea 12 days after losing to them in the Barclays Premier League, with a 2–0 victory at the Etihad Stadium that won them a quarter–final place.

Nasri got on the scoresheet, marking his return from injury off the bench with the second goal after Stevan Jovetic had struck in the first half.

Manager Manuel Pellegrini played down talk of revenge after the potentially damaging league loss to title rivals Chelsea, which had also ended a 100 per cent home record in that competition.

But Nasri admits it was uppermost in players’ thoughts.

The France international said: “After the Premier League game, I wasn’t really there, but in training you saw everyone was a little bit down because we thought we were the best team and we were unlucky.

“Fair play to Chelsea, they played the perfect game to counter us. But we knew in two weeks’ time we would have to play them again and then we would show them our real faces. We did that.”

City were always on the front foot and Chelsea struggled to make inroads. Jovetic, moments after hitting the bar, opened the scoring after 16 minutes and Nasri, five minutes after coming on, combined well with David Silva to double the lead with 67 minutes gone.

City’s attention now turns to tomorrow’s much–anticipated visit of Barcelona.

Nasri said: “It is a massive game. Every player wants to play those kind of games — Champions League, last 16, against Barcelona. The good thing is we are really strong. We have our confidence back.”