Pellegrini aiming to ramp up pressure on Manchester City´s title rivals

Manuel Pellegrini is targeting back-to-back Premier League wins to ramp up the pressure on Manchester City’s title rivals.

City open the weekend’s league programme with a trip to relegation-threatened Norwich City on Saturday before hosting Manchester United next Sunday.

In between comes a Champions League round-of-16 second-leg clash with Dynamo Kiev – City lead 3-1 from the game in Ukraine – and Pellegrini is hoping it will prove a productive period for the club.

“Norwich don’t have too much to lose and they must win their points at home. We will find a difficult team,” he said.

“I always say when you play teams in the relegation positions it is very difficult, but if we win our next two in the Premier League the pressure will be on the others. 

“It depends how the pressure is managed. We don’t have the margin of error and we need to win our games.

“But we don’t just depend on what we can do. Tottenham, Leicester… we cannot have the same points as them if they win all their games.

“We’ll play a strong team against Norwich. Then we’ll decide about Kiev. We’re not thinking about the next round.

“We have played well in three of our last four games and that is what we must focus on.”

City are 10 points behind leaders Leicester City, who play Newcastle United on Monday, but have a game in hand.

Winning the title for a second time would be a fitting send-off for Pellegrini with Pep Guardiola confirmed as his replacement at the Etihad Stadium at the end of the season.

The Chilean has been linked with several jobs since it was announced he would not be continuing at City, but he straight-batted questions about his future on Friday.

“I’m thinking about Norwich and when I finish in May then I’ll think about my future,” he added.

“I’m just focusing on my job here and after that you never know where you’ll be next. In this moment I’m very quiet.”

City will be without Ivory Coast midfielder Yaya Toure at Carrow Road due to a heel problem, while Pellegrini also confirmed injured trio Samir Nasri, Fabian Delph and Kevin De Bruyne will return after the international break.