Intro:

Reaction from both managers after the champions Manchester City hold off a fightback from Sunderland to win 3-2 in the English Premier League on Thursday (1 January).

Script:

SOUNDBITE: (English) Manuel Pellegrini, Manchester City manager:(talking about Frank Lampard)

"I think he's a top player during his whole career. He has an important amount of goals. I always say that he's a very important players for us, that's why we bring him here at the beginning of the season. And it's very important also now that he will stay with us till the end of the season."

SOUNDBITE: (English) Gus Poyet, Sunderland manager:

"When you are playing away against the champions and you find yourself 2-0 down, you need to do something very special to come back. And after coming back, we need to be better. The disappointing side of the performance is after 2-2, the last 15 minutes, we gave the ball away too easily. If it was a young lad (not) Frank Lampard. (but) It's Frank Lampard no. We know what he does. He's going to arrive late in the box, so we need to mark. We opened up the game completely and we needed our goalkeeper to be very good at the end to save us from conceding five or six. Which is a risk that you take when you open your game up against the quality of Man(chester) City. But at the end, we need to be realistic, we gave the champions quite a decent game."