'Difficult' - Nathan Ake verdict on new Man City signings speaks volumes

Manchester City defender Nathan Ake spoke about how the new signings have done since arriving to help the team

Nathan Ake praised the impact of the new Manchester City signings as the Blues look to pick themselves up quickly after another setback.

City were outsiders to beat Real Madrid even before a first leg deficit and an injury to Erling Haaland, so when Kylian Mbappe scored inside four minutes at the Bernabeu and then John Stones went off injured their Champions League hopes were all but killed. Ake had to come on for Stones and play the rest of the game out in a team that knew they were beaten.

Despite the poor performance and result, three of the four January signings started in Madrid and Nico Gonzalez bagged a late consolation goal following in Omar Marmoush's free-kick. Ake was impressed with how the arrivals were up for such a tough match, even if the rest of the side ultimately weren't.

"It’s difficult during the game to talk to them because there’s so much going on. I think they did well, to keep themselves ‘up’ in a game like this, really well, especially [Abdukodir] Khusanov. But overall as a team, we didn’t," he said.

"Maybe because there’s been a lot of setbacks this season. Maybe more than we’ve been used to. It’s a new experience for everyone.

"How we dealt with it today obviously wasn’t good enough. We have to try to do that better in the next few games especially - against top teams as well. We have to make sure we’re more resilient, stronger in those situations when things go against us.

"We still have to keep the belief we can [beat Liverpool]. In these big games, we’ve done it before. We’ve done it a few times this season.

"Obviously most of the time this season we haven’t. The only thing we can do is look forward and go to the next one, at home, with confidence. We also have to accept that these last two games against Madrid they were just better."