The result was Pellegrini’s final match as City boss and he has stated his pride at the work he has carried out at the club over the three year period.
He said: “It’s been a very special day without any doubt. It’s not easy to finish a cycle, especially after three years when I’ve been happy working here and the way the team play but always in life things must finish and I’m happy it has finished well today.”
“I don’t have a shirt because I don’t play so I gave my jacket to a fan because they deserve it. Over the three years I have been here they have supported me always and that for me is very important.”
City will finish in fourth in the Premier League, barring an outrageous result in Manchester United’s re-arranged tie with Bournemouth, and the Chilean believes it has been a successful season for the club.
“If you analyse the season we won the Capital One Cup and we reached the semi-final of the Champions League losing only to an own goal,” he said.
“We could not continue in the FA Cup and in the Premier League we finished not in the position we wanted but we’ve been very near the top of the table all year.
“In February we lost two games at home against Leicester and Tottenham so it was hard to fight for the title. If you think of all those things, it’s been a good season, not a very good season but still good.
“If you’ve been in the Champions League places for 37 games then it is important to qualify. I think that if you are a big team you must play in the Champions League and you must play the domestic league so it was very important to finish the way we did.”
Finally, Pellegrini has insisted that the team weren’t affected by the abandonment of the Manchester United tie due to a ‘suspicious package’ in the stands.
“I knew that the game was abandoned but I didn’t know why. We were focusing just on our game because we weren’t depending on the result of Manchester United,” he concluded.
