The City manager said that he agreed with the club’s supporters who want back-to-back league titles. “I feel here that for all the fans the Premier League is more important than the Champions League,” he said.
“For the media, the Champions League is more important. But for this team it is very important to continue winning domestic titles and also to improve in the Champions League. It’s what all the important teams must do every year.
Pellegrini added: “If you ask me I think what reflects more what a team did during the year it’s the domestic competition. Not only here, but everywhere because you play 38 games. Maybe in Champions League you play very well and have one unlucky game in the knockout stage and you are out of the competition. So it’s so important to try to win the Champions League but not leave the domestic games as secondary to it.
“I think it [the Premier League] reflects more your work. To win the Champions League it depends on so many things in the knockout stage that can be – not exactly the word ‘lucky’ – to win it. Because if you win it you have a very good team also. But you need a little bit more luck to do it.”
City face Arsenal on Sunday in second place in the Premier League and then come up against Barcelona in the last 16 of the Champions League.
Pellegrini also defended the £32?million signing of Eliaquim Mangala – although he conceded that it has been “not so easy” since he arrived in the league.
“The thing that is important is to analyse his performance at the end of the season. It is difficult at this moment to decide,” Pellegrini said of the French international.
“I think he is a young player. I continue trusting a lot in the way that he plays. Maybe it was not so easy for him to settle here in the Premier League but I am absolutely sure he will be a very important player for us in a few years.
“It is difficult to analyse because maybe I agree that he is not doing so well in some games, but in other games he is a sensation and has been very important for us.”
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