Pellegrini is coming under increasing pressure after back-to-back defeats to Barcelona and Liverpool left City facing the prospect of finishing the season without a trophy.
City’s Abu Dhabi owners have demonstrated in the past with the dismissals of Mark Hughes and Roberto Mancini that just as important as trophies are signs of progress and improvement.
And the big concern at the Etihad Stadium is that City have gone backwards this season after winning a Premier League-Capital One Cup double in Pellegrini’s first season.
City’s board conducts a forensic review of the club’s performances at the end of each season and Pellegrini knows that if he fails to turn round his team’s performances in the last three months of the campaign his spell will almost certainly come to an end, with Bayern Munich’s Pep Guardiola understood to be the club’s No1 choice.
Former Barcelona coach Guardiola has only one season left on his contract with the Bundesliga giants and has always said he wants to work in the Premier League. He also has close links with City’s chief executive Ferran Soriano and sporting director Txiki Begiristain, both former directors at the Nou Camp.
City have performed worse in every competition this season. They went out of the League Cup in the fourth round after winning the trophy last season, and they also made a fourth-round exit in the FA Cup after reaching the quarter-finals last year.
But it is in the two major competitions where City have so far taken the biggest retrograde steps.
In the Premier League they are five points worse off than after 27 games last season, having won three less games and scored 14 fewer goals. In the Champions League group stages they went backwards too, scrambling through to the knock-out stages thanks to wins over 10-man Bayern Munich and Roma in their last two games, as opposed to winning five out of six in their pool last season.
And they now face the daunting task of needing a 2-0 win in the Nou Camp on March 18 to avoid a last-16 exit from the competition for the second season running.
Pellegrini’s signings are coming under serious scrutiny while his stubborn refusal to abandon his favoured 4-4-2 formation has been savaged by pundits and fans alike.
Even after being out-numbered and out-paced by Barcelona in midfield last Tuesday, Pellegrini didn’t heed the warnings and played the same system against a Liverpool team whose front three are similar in speed, skill and size to the Catalans – and again City were exposed.
The Chilean’s attacking philosophy is fine against the majority of Premier League opponents – they had scored nine goals in their previous two League games against mid-table Stoke and Newcastle – but against the better teams they look vulnerable.
At Anfield, Pellegrini played Yaya Toure, David Silva and Samir Nasri, none of whom are defensively minded midfield players. And with Sergio Aguero or Edin Dzeko either not willing or expected to drop back and help out, City were too easy to play through.
What makes Pellegrini’s decision even more bizarre is that in arguably City’s best two performances of the season – the win-or-bust Champions League away win over Roma in December and the 1-1 draw against title rivals Chelsea in January – he played with a solitary striker and an extra midfielder to protect the back four. Why he didn’t take the same pragmatic approach against Barcelona and Liverpool remains a mystery.
What is certain is that it could cost Pellegrini his job if City fail to pull off a miracle in the Nou Camp and fail to catch Chelsea.
Some of City’s under-performing stars will be feeling uneasy about their futures as well with a summer squad overhaul likely, whoever is the manager.
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