Manuel Pellegrini confident his job as Manchester City manager is safe

Manuel Pellegrini: Not ready to leave Etihad Stadium just yet

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini says he will not face the same fate as Roberto Mancini and says he will not be axed from the top job.

 

Barcelona vs Man City

March 18, 2015

Pellegrini is under growing scrutiny as City's season threatens to unravel and hopes of finishing top of the league start to disappear.

City have fallen six points behind Chelsea, who have a game in hand, after a run of just three wins in nine games.

Their hopes of salvaging some silverware from the campaign now seem to come down to the unlikely prospect of overturning a 2-1 deficit at Barcelona in the Champions League on Wednesday.

City dropped Mancini after a frustrating 2012-13 season, just a year after winning the title, and - based on that - Pellegrini's prospects could be bleak.

Manuel Pellegrini feels his team need to be more clinical in front of goal after they failed to score in a 1-0 defeat to Burnley

But Pellegrini belives his future will not follow that path, and has said previously he is looking to stay on at the club beyond his current contract, which lasts until 2016.

"Roberto left the club for other reasons, not because he didn't win anything one year. It's not 'if you don't win, you're out,” Pellegrini told The Daily Mailand Guardian newspapers

"Of course winning trophies here is extremely important. I understand you can't just say, ‘It doesn't matter, we'll come in fourth or fifth because we've got a long-term project'.

"But in the last four years this team has won two leagues, come second once, and won the FA Cup and the Capital One Cup.

"I have never felt the situation is that if I don't win I am out whatever happens."

Jamie Carragher feels Manchester City need a result against Barcelona in the Champions League to save Manuel Pellegrini from getting the sack.

Pellegrini had his player purchasing limited to £49m last summer as punishment for the club's failure to comply with European governing body UEFA's Financial Fair Play restrictions.

"This year we improved the squad while working within those limits,” Pellegrini said.

“What we did not do was bring in a crack (player). I think this team now needs a crack, another special player just to give us that sense that we are now at another level."

Pellegrini thinks the FFP regulations have unfairly punished City. Owner Sheikh Mansour may have spent extraordinary sums recruiting players but that has been matched by heavy INVESTMENT on infrastructure to grow the club and City are debt-free.

"I was at Malaga, a club in debt, so I understand that you have to avoid clubs having unsustainable budgets, accumulating unpaid debts,” the Chilean manager said.

"But preventing you from INVESTING, speculating, is absurd. It's anti-competitive. The intentions are good, but FFP needs serious revision."

City will certainly look to the transfer market again in the summer but retaining the services of 29-year-old midfielder James Milner is also high among Pellegrini's priorities.

"It would be very difficult to find a more complete player than Milner.

"There are players who are better technically. There are quicker players. There are players who head the ball better. 

“But show me a player who does all the things that Milner does well and there isn't one. And whatever position I put him in he plays well.”