Pellegrini shrugs off title pressure
Print Edition
MANCHESTER City manager Manuel Pellegrini has said he is unconcerned about the pressure of being back in pole position to win the English Premier League.
Liverpool’s home defeat by Chelsea last Sunday meant that City will almost certainly regain the title it lost last season if it wins its three remaining games.
The final two are at home to Aston Villa and West Ham United, both of whom are in poor form, so the game at Everton today is seen as the crucial fixture.
“When you just depend on what you do, it’s better for the players,” Pellegrini said yesterday. “We like to have the pressure to be one of the teams who can win the title. At this moment the motivation is very high.”
City, champion in 2012, was written off in some quarters after losing at Liverpool and only drawing with lowly Sunderland recently, but last weekend’s results changed all that.
Although Liverpool, like City, can also finish with 86 points, the Manchester side, with 77 points now, has a goal difference that is already eight better, with an extra game to improve it further.
Pellegrini, hoping to join those managers who have become English champion in their first season in charge, said Spanish international David Silva, who missed last Sunday’s win at Crystal Palace with an ankle injury, was back in the squad.
But he warned that Everton, under Roberto Martinez, will be difficult opposition at Goodison Park, where City has won only once in 22 years.
“The past is the past and this is the present, but Everton at any stage would be a difficult team,” the Chilean said.
“Roberto is doing a very good job in the same way he did at Wigan, playing for the Champions League and Europa League.
“We are sure we’re going to have a tough game.
“In football you never know, so the important thing for us is to think about what we can do and the only thing we can do is to try and win our games.”
Everton is in fifth place, four points behind Arsenal but three ahead of Tottenham Hotspur as it seeks a return to European football for the first time in five years.
Not since 1981 have the top three been so close together at this stage of the season and only twice in the Premier League era (1999 and 2008) have three teams been in mathematical title contention at this point.
Chelsea, lying second on 78, hosts Norwich City tomorrow and leader Liverpool (80) visits Crystal Palace on Monday.
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