Loic Remy put the hosts ahead against the run of play, but David Silva hit back with his seventh goal of the season as City bossed possession.
In the end Pellegrini’s men could not find a way through Chelsea’s organised rearguard for a second time, but the performance marked a significant improvement on recent outings against Arsenal and Middlesbrough.
The result leaves City trailing Chelsea by five points but with 15 Premier League games to play, Pellegrini was in bullish mood afterwards.
“We have to play 45 points more, it was important for our team to try and close that gap to two points, but it was impossible, but I repeat we did all we could: personality, football, intention, possession.
“But I think that this game will be important for our team because we will recover our normal standard of play.
“They (Aguero and Samir Nasri is returning that’s why this can give us a lot of trust to come here against the leaders at Stamford Bridge, that will give us a lot of trust and I really think that we were the better team than Chelsea today.”
The Chilean boss was proud of his side’s attitude, and paid tribute to a high pressing game that cut off Chelsea’s dangerous counter attacks at source.
But there was frustration that the enterprise was only rewarded with a point.
He added: “No I’m not happy with the point, I’m happy with the way my team played today because we had the personality to go for three points from the beginning.
“We had three clear chances in the first half, one very good save from Courtois, others that we missed.
“They scored from the only chance that they had during the 90 minutes, the second half they didn’t have a shot on our goal – I think there was just one team from the beginning that wanted to win.
“If you say it’s a good point at Stamford Bridge, maybe, it’s a good point in the way we played for 95 minutes, but it’s not a good point because we had a better performance than Chelsea.”
