Manuel Pellegrini landed in Canada on Monday evening for Manchester City’s post-season tour convinced he will remain in place as the manager for next season.
Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the City chairman, spent time with Pellegrini on Sunday when City played their final home match of the season, the 2-0 victory over Southampton. Yet whether he then carried out the expected review of Pellegrini’s performance is unclear. Senior sources have signalled there is no expectation the manager will be removed.
This is largely down to the club’s impressive finish to the season that began after City lost the derby at Manchester United 4-2 on 12 April. From then, they won their last six matches in a strong run of form that secured second place in the Premier League on 79 points, eight points behind the champions, Chelsea.
Although this meant the club ended the season without a trophy after winning the title and the Capital One Cup in Pellegrini’s debut campaign, there is a recognition that the championship is difficult to claim every year.
In analysing the season Pellegrini is unsure if the decline in goalscoring is a fundamental reason why his team came up short as City were again the Premier League’s top scorers with 83 strikes, 10 more than Chelsea. In last year’s title-winning campaign 102 were registered.
Pellegrini said: “It’s not so easy to make that analysis because we were the highest scoring team this year and we didn’t win the title. Maybe we had the highest scorer in the Premier League [Sergio Agüero] and the goalkeeper [Joe Hart] with the most clean sheets and the best goal difference but we didn’t win the title. It’s also important to concede less goals because there are a lot of points that you lose through just one goal.”
He believes City must develop more ruthlessness against teams near the bottom. “Maybe we will continue being a high-scoring team but we must be a more consistent team that doesn’t lose points against teams in the relegation positions,” he said.
Pellegrini is aiming to refresh and strengthen the squad in the close season, though one player who may now remain is Yaya Touré.
The Ivorian does not enjoy the best relations with the club and his agent, Dimitri Seluk, recently insisted Touré was “90% certain” to leave City in the summer. Now, though, Seluk, whose pronouncements can be erratic, claims the midfielder has been told he is wanted for next season as he is “too important to let go”.
A year ago Seluk also claimed Touré would leave. “There is a big possibility Yaya will leave this summer,” he said last May, after Touré was unhappy that the club had not marked his birthday with enough significance. “He is very upset. What happened at his birthday means the club don’t care about him. It was proof,” Seluk said.
Given these mixed messages Touré’s immediate future remains unclear. He is with the rest of the squad in Canada, where they play Toronto on Wednesday and then fly to Texas to meet Houston Dynamo the following day. They are also attending New York City FC’s MLS game with Houston on Saturday.
