The art of management is to create an aura, to brainwash the players into believing that they have the beating of a team every bit as good as Barcelona.
It is to inspire, to send them out into the tunnel ahead of kick off to look down their noses at Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Neymar and Luis Suarez.
Out on the training pitches, the role of Manchester City’s manager is to come up with a plan to squeeze the pips out of his players over two legs in order to beat one of the best teams we have ever seen.
So far, at the elite level of European competition, Manuel Pellegrini has come up short.
Not once, but every single time.
The temptation for the money men at Manchester City is to wave a wad of cash at Pep Guardiola and ask him to start over at this club.
City spilt their guts here, exposing themselves on one of the biggest stages in European football. It was not a pretty sight.
Guardiola, in the stands to watch his former club Barcelona outclass City, has it all sewn up as Bayern Munich head into the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
He is not coming any time soon.
If Manchester City want to dominate Europe, in a way that Barcelona did when they won the Champions League in 2009 and 2011, then Pellegrini is not their man. That much is clear.
City need innovation, a man with the stature and the confidence to redevelop this team and take them to the next level.
Clearly there is a decision to be made at the highest level of the club at the end of the season because there is evidence that they are starting to regress.
Last season they won the Barclays Premier League and carted off the Capital One Cup, when they beat Sunderland at Wembley. This year they will be empty handed.
The job of a manager at a club of City’s standing is to provide the players with the coaching and tactical acumen to test the very best teams. Pellegrini is not doing that.
He has not beaten Barcelona since 2008, a dreadful record for a man who previously coached Real Madrid and has been given the backing to spend some major money recruiting players at City.
The job now is to motivate the players to finish in the top four, to galvanise them this weekend against Tony Pulis and his West Brom team.
There was a brief moment last night, in between the shocking ill-discipline among his players, when Pellegrini ventured towards the edge of City’s technical area.
They were being fried alive at the time, barely able to get a touch of the ball after Ivan Rakitic had left Yaya Toure behind to score Barcelona’s goal.
Pellegrini waved at his players, ushering them into Barcelona’s half in a lame attempt to provide them with some inspiration. It was an empty gesture.
Every time they crossed that halfway line after the midway point of the first half, they lost possession and allowed Messi to drift across City’s entire back four.
There is a reason Messi is the three-time winner of the Ballon d’Or — and it is down to the coach to provide the solution for his players. Hacking him to bits is not one of them.
City could take a chainsaw to this squad in the summer and it still feels like a team that needs to be rebuilt under another manager.
They scored more than 150 goals in all competitions last season, winning friends along the way with their freedom and their ability to outscore the opposition.
Here in the Nou Camp they surrendered again, failing to come up with a masterplan to stop Iniesta and Rakitic dictating the tempo from the centre of midfield.
From there the pair sprayed everything wide, feeding Messi or Neymar to wreak havoc.
These guys are playing at an elite level.
City’s owners out in Abu Dhabi will want answers, a natural consequence of another premature elimination from the Champions League.
To Pellegrini’s credit he is always unmoved by the speculation about his future. But after this it has to be right at the top of the agenda. – Daily Mail