Manuel’s pain for no gain
WHEN the new year was ushered in, few would have thought that come the spring it would be Manchester City rather than their neighbours United who were in danger of missing out on Champions League football next season.
But with the Manchester derby looming at Old Trafford on Sunday, it is City who are facing the unthinkable – unless Manuel Pellegrini can somehow turn around the club’s dramatic decline in 2015.
Hopes of retaining the Premier League title all but vanished with Monday night’s 2- 1 defeat at Crystal Palace and increased the pressure on the Chilean. But one glance at the club’s current trajectory suggests it could get worse, with City suddenly looking far from certain to secure even a top- four place.
Defeat at Old Trafford, coupled with wins by Tottenham and Liverpool – who both face winnable home games this weekend, against Aston Villa and Newcastle respectively – would leave them only four points clear of the teams currently in fi fth and sixth positions. And City still have to travel to White Hart Lane.
Skipper Vincent Kompany admits that despite City’s record of winning six of the past seven derbies – most recently 1- 0 at the Etihad in November – the force is now very much with their rivals in the chase for second place.
“The momentum is a bit with our neighbours at the moment,” he said. “But it’s the perfect place for us to go and try to rectify what happened at Crystal Palace.
“A derby is a derby. It doesn’t matter what place you are in the league, it’s a derby. If anything, it’s a good moment to go into a derby.”
A United victory will certainly not help Pellegrini’s cause but senior City sources were insisting yesterday that although his future will be decided when the club’s chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak – owner Sheikh Mansour’s right- hand man – conducts his post- mortem on the season next month, he is far from being a “dead man walking”.
There are suggestions that Pellegrini could receive a stay of execution if City cannot persuade their No1 target Pep Guardiola to quit Bayern Munich with a year left on his contract in Germany. Carlo Ancelotti is understood to have his admirers in Abu Dhabi but it remains to be seen if Real Madrid sack the former Chelsea manager, while Ajax boss Frank de Boer and Southampton’s Ronald Koeman have also been linked.
If City keep Pellegrini at the helm for the fi nal year on his contract they run the risk of him being viewed as a “lame- duck” manager while they wait for Guardiola – with the obvious danger of an adverse effect on performances next season.
What is certain is that failure to secure a top four fi nish this season would spell the end for Pellegrini, with the Abu Dhabi hierarchy viewing Champions League qualifi cation, year- onyear, as a minimum requirement for all their massive investment.
City’s record since drawing dead level with Chelsea on New
Year’s Day, when they were separated only by alphabetical order, has not inspired confi dence among their followers.
In 16 games in all competitions, they have won only six, drawn three and lost seven. It is worse even than David Moyes’ 16- game record from the start of 2014, which led to his dismissal by United last season.
The performance at Selhurst Park was not as bad as the recent defeat at Burnley or home draw with Hull – and did not indicate that the players themselves have given up on Pellegrini.
But for all their possession they have lost last season’s cutting edge that brought them more than 150 goals in all competitions, as well as the ability to grind out consistent results.
Kompany, right, tried to take some positives by saying: “In some funny way, it wasn’t even a bad game. We are demanding with ourselves because we have to win, but you guys saw it – did they have a shot on goal except for set- pieces?
“Credit to Palace but it’s not one of the games I felt we should have lost. It has a bit of a different feel to it maybe than the result at Burnley.
“It doesn’t feel like a game to draw conclusions from. But a team like us needs result and it wasn’t the result that we hoped for.”
The problem though is that results are the only currency for the managers of top clubs and Pellegrini badly needs one on Sunday.
FORMER City goalkeeper Harry Dowd, who made 181 appearances for the club between 1958 and 1969, has died aged 76.