Manuel Pellegrini is big on self criticism at the moment and it’s very easy to understand why!
The manager has a reputation of not being particularly forthcoming with the media but when talking to reporters flowing his general press conference he spent a lot of time explaining his current feelings on what appears to be a desperate situation.
There comes a point where words really don’t hack it anymore but the boss was given something of a grilling ahead of the Chelsea match complicated of course by the suspension of Issa Diop.
Pellegrini insists however that nothing is going to make him change his ways – precisely the same message as he gave when we lost four matches on the trot at the beginning of last season.
Whether he can effect the same transformation remains to be seen in a management spell which to put it politely has been patchy at best.
He explained: “When you are in a bad moment, you must have good self-criticism. That is the first thing you must do. But you cannot have doubt of all you are doing.
Maybe there are a lot of reasons why we are not getting the results. Before these six games, we worked exactly the same way we have these six games.
Exactly the same. The same players, the same way of working, the same technical skills, the same physical work. We changed nothing.”
“You have to trust yourself more than ever, more than ever. Trust the way you work. Because you have a career behind you. You’re not just starting a career.
Continue to believe in what you know or which is the way you must find the solution. For me, it’s clear. We need a good performance, not to change it all, and hopefully we can do it as soon as we can.”
“You must try to be calm because I don’t think you can make good decisions if you are emotional. But the way you work inside, maybe you have another character. Maybe I have another character – but I don’t try to show that by doing stupid things because you are in a bad moment.
You have one personality and you must try to keep it in the good moments and the bad moments. I think people are stronger when they need to be very strong, not when things are going well and are very easy. So at this moment I must be calm.”
“The players know the way I work during the week, the way I am in the dressing room before the game and during the game.”