Manuel Pellegrini not feeling pressure despite Manchester City woes

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini says he is under no pressure from the club's owners despite a recent slump that threatens to leave them without a trophy this season.

The Premier League champions are struggling to keep pace with leaders Chelsea and face an uphill battle to stay in the Champions League after last week's chastening 2-1 home defeat by Barcelona in the last 16 first leg.

Having lost in the FA Cup to second tier Middlesbrough, the Chilean's hopes of backing up last season's title and League Cup with more trophies look slim, leading to inevitable speculation about his job.

Asked a Tuesday's news conference whether he was concerned, he said: "No. I never haven't any pressure to win an amount of titles, to win a title every year if I want to continue here."

"The only pressure is when I don't see my team playing like I want it to.

"Never when I sign a contract do they tell me I have to win the title every year, or five titles in five years," he added.

"Only one team wins and that doesn't mean all the others are failures. There are different ways to analyse a season, the title is important but not the only important thing."

City go into Wednesday's home match against bottom club Leicester City five points adrift of Chelsea who also have a game in hand. Third-placed Arsenal are only four points behind Pellegrini's side.

Sunday's 2-1 defeat by Liverpool was a hammer blow for City and left them five points worse off than they were after 27 games of last season when they surged through to take the title for the second time in three seasons.

"We are second, we have just two or three points less than last year and we continue in the Champions League," said Pellegrini.

"I don't think it's important to think about what happened in the past, it's important to think about what will happen in the future, to improve, to be consistent for 90 minutes and not have those bad moments in games.

"The concern is to win the next 11 games. It's important to trust in what we do because I think it's the same team that won the League Cup and Premier League last season, that scored a lot of goals."