Vive la City - Blues back from the brink

Joe Hart claimed Manchester City were making history as they put themselves in sight of the Champions League semi-finals with a dramatic 2-2 draw at Paris Saint-Germain.

Fernandinho scored a 72nd-minute equaliser as City held off a PSG onslaught to claim the advantage at the end of a frantic first leg at the Parc des Princes.

City took the lead in a compelling but error-strewn game through Kevin De Bruyne after Hart saved an early penalty from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who also spurned another good chances moments later.

PSG hit back after a horrendous blunder from Fernando, went ahead through Adrien Rabiot and hit the bar from an Ibrahimovic header but Fernandinho seized on poor home defending to level.

Hart said: It was a crazy game that we were fully involved in. It was a good game of football and we will wait and see how good a result that is.

Two away goals is great, hopefully we make them count. We are making history for this club and we don't want it to end.''

Hart was at a loss to explain Fernando's gaffe, which was so unexpected it was missed by the live TV broadcast.

The Brazilian looked under no pressure as Hart casually rolled a goalkick to him but a poor touch allowed Ibrahimovic a chance he was not going to spurn after his two earlier misses.

Hart said: It was a terrible first goal for us to concede after being 1-0 up.

I've given Fernando the ball and he obviously thought there was an option to pass inside and the big man put his size 15s on it and it went in.''

Reaching the last four would put a completely different complexion on City's season, which has been threatening to fizzle out since they won the Capital One Cup in February.

City boss Manuel Pellegrini was pleased with the result but was well aware his side could have been punished more heavily for some of their mistakes and the job is far from completed.

The Chilean, who reached the last four with Villarreal in 2006, said: This quarter-final remains open. We still have 90 minutes ahead of us in Manchester but this is a good result.

If we want to win, we cannot make the kind of mistakes we did here, but we were trying to win the game from the first minute, it is the way we play. It's never easy to leave here with a draw, against a very good team with very good players.

Now it's Paris' turn to come and play at our ground. They are a team who know how to play and how to get good results. We will need to improve defensively, as we made some big mistakes.''

PL

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