Gareth Barry says his Manchester City team mates are 100% behind Kolo Toure who missed the 1-0 Premier League win over Wigan after failing a drugs test.
Toure, whose former manager Arsene Wenger had reported had taken a slimming tablet belonging to his wife, watched from the stands at the City of Manchester Stadium as David Silva scored the only goal.
Barry told ESPN: “Something like this doesn’t happen too often. We’re all behind Kolo and supporting him, we’re backing him 100%.”
Barry admitted Wigan had caused City problems after the break. “In the second half they really pinned us back,” he said. “There were signs the amount of games we’ve played in a short period of time might have caught us up.”
Team-mate Micah Richards added: “That’s why you need a big squad and that’s what we are trying to do here. The three points is what we deserve in the end.”
City manager Roberto Mancini admitted his players had lagged in the second half. “We played well and we had four or five chances to score but in the second half we were tired,” he said. “I think Wigan played very well in the second half.”
The main assist in the game came from Wigan goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi, who inexplicably allowed Silva’s shot to squirm from his grasp just before half-time, an incident that distressed the Oman custodian according to his manager Roberto Martinez.
“He was upset,” Martinez said. “He has been fantastic for us and will be again. Football is a game of errors and accidents happen. Now it is about how you react.”
For the second Saturday running, Martinez was complaining about the failure of an official to spot the severity of a foul on his player. The latest incident was nothing like as clear-cut as Wayne Rooney’s elbow on James McCarthy.
However, Martinez was adamant Micah Richards should have been sent off for a robust challenge on Tom Cleverley that only brought a yellow card.
“It was a straight red,” he said. “The result is so disappointing because the performance was really good. We controlled the tempo of the whole game. If we carry on with those standards until the end of the season, we will get the points we need.”
Credit: http://soccernet.espn.go.com
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