The Manchester City manager joked that he was trying to liven up proceedings on Monday when he admitted right at the very end of his press conference that he will leave the club
Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini refused to shed any light on his future at a packed press conference on Friday afternoon.
Pellegrini shocked the football world at the start of this week by admitting at the very end of his pre-Sunderland media briefing that he would be stepping down at the end of the season, with the club quickly confirming that Pep Guardiola will take over.
The Chilean himself has been linked with a number of jobs in recent days, but after opening with a light-hearted remark, he remained consistent in his stance that he is only focusing on City's on-pitch fortunes until the end of the season.
"I cannot do all the press conference for you, you must try to help me a little bit more," he joked when asked if he had any more revelations. "I was so bored last time that I tried to make you a little bit more amused."
But he quickly reverted to type and only spoke very briefly about his and the club's decision to go public with the news of Guardiola's summer arrival.
"No, it's not a relief," he added. "I think it's important for everybody to know that I know what's happening and not that everyone was talking behind me. That for me is important but that's the last thing I will talk [say] about that because we are in this season, we have a lot of things to fight for, so it's very important to be focused now in what we must do in this season and not [start] thinking about the next one."
Pellegrini did, however, admit his frustration that City's FA Cup fifth round clash with Chelsea is due to be scheduled for Sunday February 21, one day before the team fly to Ukraine for their Champions League last-16 clash with Dynamo Kiev.
City are keen for a Saturday clash but police will not allow it on the grounds that Chelsea's west London rivals Fulham are playing that day, while the BBC have already arranged their non-football programming for the Friday night after expecting that the game would be scheduled on Saturday.
It has left City facing a hectic schedule - just one week ahead of the League Cup final at Wembley - and Pellegrini has confirmed that he will play a young team if the FA do not move the game to an earlier date.
Asked about burnout, he said: "I'm very worried, for a lot of things. First of all if we have to play against Chelsea on Sunday we will not play with our team, we will play with a young team because we have to travel to Ukraine on Monday.
"I don’t see any reason why we cannot play on Saturday; Chelsea play on Tuesday before in the Champions League. So if we have to play on Sunday afternoon we will see which players we are going to play."
He also added that going out of the FA Cup would not be disastrous as any sixth round tie would require their mid-March league clash with Norwich City to be postponed, meaning a more crowded midweek schedule even later in the season.
"I don’t want to analyse," he said. "I think that if we have to play against Chelsea, who played four days before, the logical thing is to play Saturday. For different reasons they put us on Sunday, maybe their interests are more important than Manchester City’s interests.
"But I think that I must do what is better for the club and I think it is better to try to play with the most strongest team in the Champions League, because also if you continue in the FA Cup you have to postpone two or three games after that and we don’t have any options to play those games during midweek.
"So we will see which day we are going to play the FA Cup but before that we have to play against Leicester, against Tottenham, two teams that are also fighting for the title, so we will see after that what we will do with the FA Cup."
- Goal