City top Group A despite defeat

Manchester City finished the group stages of the 2008/2009 UEFA Europa League at the head of Group A despite suffering a heavy defeat at the hands of racing Santander in Spain last night.

City were unable to find the back of the net until injury time as Santander scored goals through Jonathan Pereira, Oscar Serrano and Juan Valera. While the Spaniards dominated all aspects of the encounter, their performance came too late as they were eliminated from the tournament.

“We have topped the group and that was the order of the day. We are grateful for that,” Manchester City manager Mark Hughes said after the match. “Ideally we would have preferred to have won the game but credit to Racing, they are a good team. Their motivation was to try to get into the next round. We had already qualified so that might have taken a little bit of edge out of our game.”

More serious than the defeat for Manchester City was the injury to star striker Robinho, who is a doubtful starter for City’s crucial Premier League match against West Bromwich Albion this weekend.

“Robinho was not able to continue so he is a big doubt for the weekend,” Hughes said. “It it his ankle again. We are staying here overnight so we will check everyone in the morning.”