City will reach Barca level in five years, says Manuel Pellegrini

Manuel Pellegrini believes Manchester City can reach the level of Barcelona within five years.

City need no reminding of the quality of the Spanish giants, having been beaten by them four times in the Champions League over the past two seasons.

This year’s losses in February and March were particularly one-sided and Barca again underlined their class on the highest stage with a stunning Lionel Messi-inspired 3-0 defeat of Bayern Munich this week.

With City having laboured through the season and meekly surrendered their Premier League crown, the gulf between the two clubs seems huge. But City have still come a long way in a relatively short period and manager Pellegrini has no doubt the ambitious club will eventually reach the European summit.

The Chilean said: “The project at this club is to improve every year, to grow every year as a club, in all senses, in every department, young players, first team.

“It’s not easy to compare, not the whole history, but this club in the last seven years, has had the amount of money you need to compete with Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern, Manchester United — the most important teams of the world that can spend more money and have the best players.

"Maybe a lot of people are nervous because you don’t do it in three, four, five years. All these projects need a long time and every year you must demonstrate that you are growing and improving.

“This season we are really seeing again the Barcelona we saw a few years ago. But there is a lot of things we can try to reduce the distance between our team and them. I am sure we are going to do it sooner than five years.”

Pellegrini feels City need a star player who can have a similar effect on his team as Messi does at the Nou Camp and thinks Sergio Aguero may be that man.

He said: “We need to find another Messi! He makes the difference, without doubt, like Ronaldo at Real Madrid... maybe next year we’ll see another Kun (Aguero) because he is growing every year. I hope he will be as important here as those players are at their teams.”