5 Managers Who Could Replace Manuel Pellegrini at Manchester City

While the season is far from over for Manchester City, it’s looking increasingly like a damp squib compared to their league and League Cup double of 2013/14. Barring a miraculous performance at the Nou Camp, they’ll be out of the Champions League, and they look likely to relinquish the Premier League crown as they find themselves six points behind Chelsea, who have a game in hand.

For last season's champions, it's simply not good enough. Chelsea have certainly strengthened with the additions of Diego Costa, Nemanja Matic and Cesc Fabregas, but City have spent lavishly as well. The most expensive summer signing, Eliaquim Mangala, has failed to provide a solution to their central defensive problem, and has failed to dislodge Vincent Kompany or Martin Demichelis in the pecking order. Wilfried Bony has so far been unable to have an impact.

City's owners have shown themselves to have little in the way of sentimentality when it comes to managers. Roberto Mancini was sacked despite leading the club to its first league title in 44 years. If they finish this season trophyless, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them beginning the next with a different man at the helm. Bleacher Report’s Manchester City correspondent Rob Pollard has already highlighted the jeopardy his position is in.

These five potential successors are ranked from least likely to most, based on their managerial records, availability to the club this summer, and their style of management. The club's owners will want the team to retain its fluid, attacking philosophy, and factors such as the manager's ability to handle superstar players will also be at play.

5. Pep Guardiola

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If City were to draw up a wish list of managers, it’s hard to imagine anyone topping it other than Pep Guardiola. No manager has achieved what he has done in his eight-year managerial career, and his personal list of honours speaks for itself.

Granted, he has only taken charge of two of the most formidable teams in world football thus far, but anyone who witnessed his Bayern Munich side outplaying City at the Etihad stadium with 10 men earlier this season will know it’s not merely a case of him buying his way to the top.

City’s financial strength would make it very easy for Guardiola to remold the squad to suit his dynamic style of play, and the current squad contains players he’d no doubt like to work with—not least Sergio Aguero.

However, even if he is first on the wish list, the operative word is “wish.” Guardiola is highly unlikely to leave Bayern until he has achieved the same levels of absolute dominance that he did with Barca. While there is certainly a degree of his mentor Jose Mourinho's continental trophy hunting in his psyche, it would be a shock to see him leave Germany soon.

4. Patrick Vieira

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Former Arsenal midfielder Patrick Vieira has been with the club for five years in both a playing and back-room capacity. While continuity has hardly been a byword of the Mansour reign at Eastlands, having a manager who has been involved in both of City’s title-winning campaigns would certainly have its upsides.

Vieira knows the club and the players extremely well, and has been entrusted with the club’s elite development squad. The suggestion that he’s being groomed for the manager’s position has been around for some time, and he certainly has Premier League experience in abundance.

However, his lack of a proven managerial track record will count heavily against him. City may have seemingly unlimited financial resources, but gambling on an unproven entity to control a £1 billion squad makes Vieira an unlikely choice to immediately succeed Pellegrini. If he continues his apprenticeship under the next manager, he will definitely be in contention the next time the position is vacated.

3. Rafa Benitez

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Having already managed Liverpool and Chelsea, Rafa Benitez would be the most experienced choice readily available to City. While he is currently helming Napoli, the stranglehold that Juventus currently have on Serie A combined with the financial clout of City means he’d be unlikely to turn them down should he receive the call.

City boast a sizeable Spanish-speaking contingent who would no doubt enjoy working with the highly rated Benitez. The club also has a squad with depth in multiple areas, which would lend itself nicely to his philosophy of player rotation.

The biggest sticking point would be his failure to win a league title in 11 years, though his achievement in turning Liverpool from also-rans into true contenders deserves praise. He also boasts an excellent pedigree in European competition, having won the Europa League twice and the Champions League once. City’s repeated failures on the European stage are undoubtedly the area that the owners wish to address the most.

2. Jurgen Klopp

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Even with Dortmund’s domestic travails this season, Jurgen Klopp still boasts an extremely strong reputation. The way he has fought the juggernaut of Bayern with his team of plucky underdogs has resonated particularly well with British footballing sensibilities.

Klopp has operated under much stricter financial restraints at Dortmund than he would at City. Even for Mansour and his seemingly inexhaustible reserves of transfer money, Klopp’s ability to find bargains and turn huge profits on player sales would be an attractive prospect.

Klopp has resisted overtures from other clubs so far, but this season’s form perhaps suggests that the love affair may just be souring slightly. The real stumbling block would be whether or not Klopp would consider City his ideal location. He has been at Dortmund for seven years, and it's hard to envision whoever replaces Pellegrini lasting that long at Eastlands.

He has been consistently linked with Arsenal, thanks largely to their similar philosophy on youth players and free-flowing football.

1. Diego Simeone

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Simeone and Klopp offer similar prospects, but Simeone may just have the edge in terms of his recent track record and availability.

Both men have reached the Champions League final, but Simeone’s achievement in overhauling the huge financial advantage held by Barcelona and Real Madrid to win the La Liga title last season was one of the most unlikely successes in the modern era of the game.

This season has been slightly less rosy, with Atletico currently sitting fourth, nine points off the top. As with Klopp, Simeone’s stock is still extremely high, but there’s a suspicion that repeatedly having the rug pulled from under him in terms of losing key personnel may have him searching for a new challenge.

Manchester City would not only offer him the chance to test his mettle in a new league, but would also allow him to experience what it’s like to be the one pulling the rug on other teams.