Manuel Pellegrini digs in his heels at Manchester City
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Version 0 of 1. One of the strangest things perhaps, after all the expenditure and all the grand plans, is the amount of time – and the total number of days might surprise you – Manchester City have actually spent at the top of the Premier League since that afternoon in 2012 when Sergio Agüero pulled back his right boot, the clock ticked into the 94th minute and Martin Tyler’s commentary went up several octaves. We are approaching the three-year mark and, in total, there have been only 22 days since when City have been looking down on everyone else. The longest run at the top? That was a mere week in November 2012 before everything unravelled for Roberto Mancini. Last season? Six different spells on the summit but never more than four days, even if 7 May to 11 May were the most important four days of the campaign. Manuel Pellegrini’s team briefly went top after the first game of the current season and they did, in fairness, pull level with Chelsea on New Year’s Day, bumped down to second place because of alphabetical order and perhaps wishing they could temporarily revert to their old name of Ardwick FC. Yet there has still been a surprising amount of playing catch-up after all the talk of creating a dynasty on the back of Abu Dhabi’s first title. Sir Alex Ferguson touched on it in his updated autobiography and, OK, we all know the former Manchester United manager loves to stir. Yet he still makes a relevant point. Wasn’t this City team supposed to be the driving force of English football by now? Ferguson’s analysis was that “there was no question City possessed the best group of players”. It was the rest that puzzled him. “The fact they have twice won the league so narrowly leaves a question mark. Why is that?” All sorts of reasons; among them, the club’s erratic record in the transfer market, the breakdown of the Mancini era and Uefa’s financial fair play guidelines, then moving into the Pellegrini years and, again, some undistinguished recruitment and over-reliance on the same players. His tactics, too? Pellegrini took exception to that one when it was put to him at a slightly spiky press conference. It quickly became apparent there is absolutely no chance of persuading him his choice of system has made City vulnerable during the run of two wins from nine games, including back-to-back defeats against Barcelona and Liverpool that is threatening to sabotage their season. The manager is absolutely adamant he is not being reckless and though he would never put it so bluntly, it is also very clear he really doesn’t give a jot if others suspect he is getting it wrong. “The important thing is to continue playing with a style we are not going to change. We are going to be an offensive team, playing on the opposition’s side, not with 10 players behind the ball. Everyone can talk what they want. I know what is better for this team.” Pellegrini did not even accept it was a legitimate issue to question why he played 4-4-2 against Barcelona. “Those things, for me, are because it is a very important thing [for the media] to make controversy.” Over and again, he repeated that City will continue just as they are. “It is the same team that won two trophies last year, the Capital One Cup and the Premier League, and the team that scored around 160 goals, the most amount in the history here.” It was 156, to be precise. But it is not City’s goalscoring that has been the problem; it is the balance between attack and defence, where Vincent Kompany’s form has deteriorated to the point we should not automatically assume he will keep his place against Leicester on Wednesday. What is clear, however, is that Pellegrini, at 61, is not going to change his methods because of external pressure. “I don’t feel any pressure, especially from the media,” he said. “I feel pressure only when I don’t see my team playing the way I want to do it.” His analysis of the Barcelona game has been modified, arguing now they were “very bad” for only 20 minutes. Against Liverpool, they lost to “a beautiful goal” but he was puzzled by the way a team who had played in Istanbul the previous Thursday seemed more energetic than his own side. “The second half was very strange because I thought we would have a high pace and they must be tired.” The important thing is what the relevant people in Abu Dhabi think and though this is partly supposition, they must be alarmed by the lack of forward momentum. It does not feel right to say there has been zero progress when Pellegrini is talking at a state-of-the-art training ground and, across Alan Turing Way, another tier is being added to the stadium. Yet the least City’s owners want, surely, is a team on an upward trajectory. Pellegrini seemed quite relaxed when the subject moved to whether that, in turn, jeopardised his position. Ferran Soriano, the chief executive, once said Pellegrini should be targeting five trophies in five seasons. He does already have two, lest it be forgotten, and Pellegrini’s understanding is that City are realistic and realise worldwide domination is not a straightforward assignment. “When I signed the contract, I was never told I must win a title every year or that I must win five trophies in five years. It was a sentence from Ferran. But maybe you can win two in one year and one in another, the other another two.” He is, however, in danger of being reliant on his owners’ patience in what is often an impatient business. |