Manuel Pellegrini has denied feeling any extra pressure to take Manchester City into the Champions League knockout phase ahead of Bayern Munich’s visit on Tuesday evening.
With City bottom of Group E on two points and only Bayern and Roma left to play, they have to win each game to retain the best hope of emerging from the phase while also requiring other results to go their way.
The City hierarchy have demanded the club progress beyond last term’s achievement of reaching the last 16 but Pellegrini said: “I don’t think there is an extra pressure. I think it is important for this club to continue in Europe because it is one of our targets to improve every year. Tomorrow we will see the team fighting until the end to continue in the CL and I hope we can do it.”
Pellegrini said he hoped Sergio Agüero and Stevan Jovetic would be fit after missing training following Saturday’s 2-1 win over Swansea City. “Both of them are in the squad list,” he said. “They have no problems for tomorrow night. They have a small thing from the last game.”
Last year Bayern defeated Pellegrini’s team in an October group match at the Etihad with a commanding performance. “I think it is very difficult to compare one season with another one. Last season they played here very well and won 3-1,” the Chilean said.
“After that we went to Munich and won. The three games we have played against Bayern have been very close. We will see tomorrow which team played better.”
