Monday 16 May 2016 09:23, UK
Manuel Pellegrini hailed his last game in charge of Manchester City as a "very special day" as they all-but secured Champions League football for next season with a 1-1 draw against Swansea.
The result leaves Man City three points ahead of Manchester United in fourth, whose final game of the Premier League season with Bournemouth was abandoned because of a security threat. Man City have an 18 better goal difference.
Pep Guardiola, the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach, takes the helm at the Etihad Stadium this summer.
"It was a very special day," Pellegrini said. "It's not easy to finish a cycle, especially after three years of being very happy to work here.
"We've had a very good three seasons, but everything in life must finish. It's finished today and the most important thing is that we finished well, qualifying for the Champions League."
Pellegrini's team once again made hard work of getting the job done, creating plenty of chances against Swansea but failing to take them.
It summed up a rather underwhelming final season in charge for Pellegrini, whose team has underperformed in terms of their expectations.
However, Pellegrini believes the fact Man City won the Capital One Cup and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League papered over the cracks of their poor Premier League form.
"If you analyse the season, you can see we won the Capital One Cup and reached the semi-final of the Champions League for the first time. Maybe we didn't play well in that game [second leg against Real Madrid] but the only goal we conceded was an own goal. Before that we unfortunately couldn't continue in the FA Cup as we had to prioritise one competition and we had too many injuries in that moment.
"In the Premier League we haven't finished in the position we wanted. I think we deserved to finish in the Champions League places. All season we were very near the top of the table but in February we lost two games at home against Leicester and Tottenham in the same moment as we announced what we were doing next season.
"If you add all those things up, it's been a good season. Not a very, very good season, but a good season."
