Manuel Pellegrini: Manchester City slump not down to manager change but ‘it is not best way to end season’

Pep Guardiola will take over at the Etihad in the summer

Manuel Pellegrini looks on as Man City succumb to Claudio Ranieri's Leicester City at the Etihad (PA)

Manuel Pellegrini said the knowledge that he is leaving was not the reason Manchester City have started to falter. The City manager did, however, concede that it is “not the best way to end the season”.

Since Pep Guardiola announced in December that he would quit Bayern Munich in the summer to take over at City, they have won four of their nine Premier League games, two of which were against Sunderland. The two games after Guardiola announced his move saw City win unconvincingly on Wearside before being crushed at home by Leicester.

“The players want to win the championship because it is their duty,” said Pellegrini, whose side host Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. “It is not the best way to finish a season but I don’t think they will have any problems because I have the same relationship with the players that I did before.

“Nobody here is talking about the future. They are talking about the present and the present for me is to win. I have never worried about my future. In this career, you never know what your future will be.”