Manuel Pellegrini Vigorously Defends Real Madrid Record

Real Madrid coach Manuel Pellegrini has refuted suggestions that he "disassembled" the team in Tuesday's UEFA Champions League defeat to Lyon at Stade Gerland.

Pellegrini also stated that the vast majority of Madrid fans have recognised the remarkable improvement since he took charge last summer and said that his team can recover from what he called a bad game.

Although the Chilean is preparing his side for Villarreal on Sunday, the pre-match press conference was dominated by talk of the Lyon defeat.

"Accusations that I disassembled the team don't correspond with reality," Pellegrini declared.

"This has been a winning team, scoring and improving from the beginning. We are having an outstanding campaign. We are only two points behind the best Barcelona in history and have scored as many goals as them."

"The players are very clear, this is different from what was done before and the results are good. Ninety-five per cent of the fans say how much they like how the team is playing."

"I feel it in the street and they congratulate me. We are averaging more than three goals per game. This is the best Madrid in the last fifteen years, has the most points, most goals scored and is the least unified [in terms of team understanding]."

"You can't knock the team for one result. It was a bad game and we are all annoyed but it happens to all teams."