Manuel Pellegrini seems to forget his passport on the way to Manchester City clash with Borussia Monchengladbach

City manager arrived with the squad on the team bus before heading off in a taxi

(Reuters)

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini appeared to forget his passport as he travelled to Germany for the Champions League clash against Borussia Monchengladbach.

Pictures show the Chilean manager arriving with the rest of the squad on the team bus at Manchester Airport, where they had a 3.15pm flight, but rather than go into departures, he jumped straight into a taxi and headed off.

He then returned around 35 minutes later, and while it's not certain exactly what he was missing, one can reasonably assume it was the little book as he was without any luggage.

Speaking after arriving in Germany, Pellegrini said it was the luck of the draw, rather than poor play, that has cost them from advancing further in the competition; City are yet to get past the last-16 despite all the money they have spent.

"I don't think we have failed in Europe, " he said. "In the last two years we have qualified for the next stage and then we lost against the best team in the world, Barcelona. We have beaten Bayern Munich twice.

"Last year were in a complicated situation and we won our last two games.

"So we know how to do it. We just lost a game against Juventus, which was a strange game.

"Now we are trying in the next five games to qualify for the next stage of Europe."

Joe Hart, Yaya Toure and David Silva are expected to return, but Vincent Kompany is still missing.