Knives being sharpened as Manuel Pellegrini’s neck on the line

Manuel Pellegrini may well insist he isn’t under pressure but, as Manchester City’s squad, which cost €1.4bn to assemble, was out-classed in the Nou Camp, you could almost hear the sharpening of knives in Abu Dhabi.

Out of the Champions League, out of all domestic cup competitions and five points adrift of Chelsea in the Premier League, with a game more played, it would take a fool to consider Sheikh Mansour has not yet given the future management of his club some serious thought.

City, despite out-spending most of their rivals, have still never reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and seem to be struggling for direction in a season which has failed to deliver the consistency you expect of champions. Recent defeats to both Burnley and Liverpool underline that fact, while disappointing performances from even previously-reliable players such as Vincent Kompany indicate that the observation by Catalan journalists this week that ‘there is a strange atmosphere’ around the club is not easy to dismiss.