Barcelona is the thorn in Manuel Pellegrini’s side at Manchester City

Barcelona loom large in any analysis of Manuel Pellegrini’s managerial career. Sadly for the beleaguered Chilean, they have been a roadblock to his ambitions. Albeit indirectly, they caused him to lose one elite job. They may direct him to the exit again.

Perhaps Pellegrini’s time at Manchester City will be book ended, though in different ways, by Barcelona. There is a theory that the Catalans were considering appointing him when Tito Vilanova stood down. City beat Barcelona to Pellegrini’s services in 2013.

Defeating them on the field has proved altogether harder. Back-to-back Uefa Champions League campaigns have pitted Pellegrini’s team with one of Europe’s superpowers.

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Three games have brought three City red cards and three Barcelona wins. If they complete a grand slam tonight, Pellegrini will probably be denied a fifth chance.

His appeal to City rested partly on his track record of taking clubs to territory they had not charted in Europe, but the Premier League champions seem set to stall in the last 16 again.

Pellegrini was a semi-finalist with Villarreal and a quarter-finalist with Malaga – and in each case, could have reached the next stage – but his continental returns are diminishing.

His prowess with Villarreal earned him the Real Madrid job. He secured a then club-record points total in his first season, just as his debut year at City saw them score a record 156 goals.

Yet because of Barcelona, Madrid did not win the Primera Liga and he was dismissed.

Because of Barcelona, City’s European campaign will be curtailed, unless they somehow overturn a 2-1 deficit, and another dismissal may beckon.

The sense is that Pellegrini comes up short too often against the best. If his sides have rarely been favourites against Barcelona, a record of four wins in 25 attempts is unpromising.

If City played well during last season’s 2-1 defeat at Camp Nou, Pellegrini’s tactics contributed to both home reverses. City were too cautious last season, too reckless this.

Pellegrini’s obstinate faith in 4-4-2 left him looking naive when City granted a numerical advantage in the centre of midfield to the world’s most precise passers. It was a schoolboy error by a 61-year-old manager.

It would be astonishing if Pellegrini replicates those tactics, not least because target man Edin Dzeko was dreadful at Burnley on Saturday, and yet he has played 4-4-2 in each of their last five games.

A visit to Barcelona calls for a 4-2-3-1 formation. Pellegrini has not trialled it of late.

He has seemed more stubborn in his systemic preference even when his decision-making, such as the removals of David Silva and Yaya Toure when City required a goal at Turf Moor, has grown more erratic. The sense is that pressure has not brought the best from Pellegrini.

Nor, indeed, has the competition where he was supposed to be a specialist. City procured 15 points in the group stages last season and salvaged a remarkable recovery to reach the knockout stages this, but they have failed too many of the tougher tests.

Pellegrini has overseen two of their three wins against Bayern Munich, but each came against a weakened team.

It is why the search for a breakthrough victory continues. Considering the context, December’s 2-0 success against Roma at the Stadio Olimpico ranks as the modern-day City’s best European result.

Perhaps it only delayed an exit that may feel inevitable: both City’s from the Champions League and, barring a remarkable turnaround in the Premier League title race, potentially Pellegrini’s from the club.

Thus far, the evidence is that they have regressed domestically. That had to be balanced by progress on the continent which, in turn, implies a quarter-final place.

But Barcelona stand in Pellegrini’s way. They often seem to.

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