Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini says he was sorry to lose James Milner.

City did all they could to keep Milner at the club, says Pellegrini.

“I always think that it's special for every player to play against the team they worked for for a lot of years," said Pellegrini.

“For James Milner it will be exactly the same - it's part of the career of a player.

“It was not difficult as we did all we could to convince James to stay but he wanted to go and have another challenge - we understand but we could not do any more to convince him."