Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini came out fighting last night and claimed he doesn’t need to win trophies to save his job.
Barclays Premier League champions City face Leicester at home tonight having won only two of their last nine games in all competitions.
Back-to-back defeats against Barcelona and Liverpool have ramped up the pressure on Pellegrini, with pundits such as Sportsmail’s Jamie Carragher laying into his tactics and formations over the weekend. But Pellegrini said: ‘I am not under any pressure to win an amount of titles or win a title every year. I only feel pressure when I don’t see my team playing the right way. All the other things are not important.
‘When I signed my contract nobody told me about winning five titles in five years. That was what (chief executive) Ferran Soriano said to the media. But that doesn’t have to be one a year.
‘There are different ways of analysing things. Winning trophies is only one of them. Maybe last year nobody thought we were going to win the title but we did. To think about the future is the worst thing. I don’t do that. The most important thing is to continue playing with the same style. We won’t change.’
Carragher and Gary Neville both called City ‘embarrassing’ after Sunday’s 2-1 defeat at Liverpool, and Match of the Day pundit Robbie Savage dubbed Pellegrini ‘naive’ for the way he set up his midfield.
Pellegrini said: ‘Everybody has a right to an opinion. I know what’s best for this team. It’s not my duty to tell the media what they must think.’
City’s owners are desperate for success, especially in Europe, and have spent tens of millions of pounds trying to improve the squad following their first Premier League title success in 2012.
Asked about his relationship with the City board, Pellegrini added: ‘It’s not about relationships. I could have a bad relationship with the owners but it’s a project and it’s about how you manage this project.
‘Every project can have difficult moments. I think you have the wrong opinion about the owners of this club. They are not so desperate to win titles, they want to improve.
‘They do want to win titles but they want to do it the right way.
‘I want to win titles and I have done it in South America and here. But it’s not just about titles. I can win the title but if I am not happy with my team I can’t continue at a club. What’s important to me is how you win titles.
‘Maybe at the end of the season is when you analyse. Sometimes you don’t win the title but you continue working without any problems.
‘All this speculation is about the future but I am not worried about the future, I am worried about the present.’ – Daily Mail