What an Early Champions League Exit Would Mean for Manuel Pellegrini

What would an early Champions League exit mean for Manuel Pellegrini at Manchester City? In the spirit of not burying the lede, probably not much in the near term.

City's power structure will certainly not be enthusiastic about another City flame-out from the tournament that ultimately defines just how big a "big club" is. Director of football Txiki Begiristain and chief executive officer Ferran Soriano, the nerve center of Manchester City's operations, have made no secret that the Champions League trophy is one the club wants, badly.

This time around, though, City are the footballing definition of the drowning man clinging to a razor blade in heavy seas in Group E of the Champions League. City have but two points through four matches and must now try to get six points from their home date with Bayern Munich and their trip to AS Roma in December.

But it wasn't City's earlier results against Bayern and Roma that put them in this soup. Losing so close at the Allianz Arena was no disgrace, and the draw with Roma at the Etihad was disappointing but not debilitating.

What buried City in this tournament was pulling one skinny point from two encounters with an exceptionally moribund CSKA Moscow side. Even if you consider City's meltdown against the Russian side at the Etihad to have been unavoidable, City absolutely had to take three points out of the match in Moscow once they had the lead after the 80th minute. They didn't.

For the sake of this discussion, then, let's assume that the miracle does not come to pass and that, as expected, City fail to qualify for the knockout stage. Will Pellegrini's job really be in trouble?

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Not imminently, you would have to imagine.

"I don’t think there is an extra pressure," Pellegrini said about the club's urgency to progress past the round of 16 in the knockout stage, according to Jamie Jackson of The Guardian. "I think it is important for this club to continue in Europe because it is one of our targets to improve every year."

Pundits who blithely suggest Pellegrini's job might be in jeopardy if City do not qualify for the knockout stage this season are either ignorant of City's recent history or disregarding it entirely.

Pellegrini was brought in to douse the smoldering wreckage of Roberto Mancini's final season in charge at the Etihad. He did pretty well.

"Pellegrini surpassed expectations last season by winning the Premier League and Capital One Cup and reaching the last 16 of the Champions League," Jason Burt wrote in The Telegraph recently. "The Chilean is popular throughout the club and not least with its hierarchy." At least in part, Pellegrini's favor with Begiristain and Soriano derives from him being the anti-Mancini.

It would be nice if City won silver this season, but the opportunities are falling away by the day. The League Cup defense already ended, the Champions League pursuit is seemingly near its conclusion and the Premier League title defense become less feasible with every Chelsea win (they're 10-of-12 so far this season).

But the FA Cup is still out there to be won, and there is no telling what City might do if they somehow sneak into either the Champions League knockout round or the Europa League.

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Bombing out of the Champions League at this stage would be a huge disappointment for City, but Pellegrini has good reasons (not just excuses) for how City ended up here.

City were a very late, deflected goal away from a draw at Bayern. The penalty Aleksandar Kolarov was called for in Moscow was a disgrace. If those two breaks swing City's way, they are sitting on five points in Group E and still in control of their own destiny.

And City were not equipped to weather much bad luck in this tournament, not with the Financial Fair Play penalties hamstringing Pellegrini from a roster standpoint. Though it is hardly an FFP issue that David Silva, Kolarov and Edin Dzeko are out injured against Bayern, or that Yaya Toure and Fernandinho are suspended.

Pellegrini took the City job knowing that there might be FFP sanctions. He also knew that injuries to key players could cripple City's Champions League hopes. Pellegrini must have hoped that all of these problems would not coalesce as they have right now, but here we are.

So City will probably be out of the Champions League in less than a month. Pellegrini almost certainly will see out the remainder of this season anyway. That will leave him with one season left on the contract he signed when he came to Manchester.

Convenient terms, those. If Pellegrini does not find a trophy somewhere this season, City can then bring Pellegrini back for the last year of his deal with a far more explicit mandate to get next season right or be prepared to leave.

Of course, Pellegrini can make things much easier on himself by steering City into the Champions League knockout stage this season.

He is right to remain focused on that task for now.