Manuel Pellegrini insists he can handle the pressure of expectation at Manchester City It is very difficult for Villarreal to reach the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the Champions League, or finish second in the league, 10 points behind Barcelona, but we achieved these things. At Real Madrid, we finished ­second with 96 points, when we played a whole year against a great Barcelona with [Pep] Guardiola. I am sure that, if we stayed at Real Madrid, we could have won a lot of trophies. It [being sacked] wasn't what I wanted but that was the reality. That was the decision of Real Madrid. Malaga was the same as Villarreal - you can't win the title with Malaga - but we reached the Champions League quarter-finals and could have gone to the semi-finals but for a referee against Borussia Dortmund. In my career, I have had very important challenges and always the most important is the next challenge and now it is Manchester City. It is the fifth country I have worked in in my career and I don't have any problem with that. I don't think I have any difficulty with what I need to know. With Mancini's dismissal a result of his failure to deliver a trophy last season, ­combined with his fractious relationship with the majority of the club's players and reluctance to embrace the "holistic" approach demanded by City's Abu Dhabi hierarchy, Pellegrini's more inclusive philosophy is regarded as more in keeping with the club's outlook. "I don't want to talk about what happened in the past [with Mancini]," Pellegrini said. You will always have problems, sometimes with some players, but I think we will have very good relations. I will do my job here completely with Ferran [Soriano], with [director of football] Txiki Begiristain, and with [reserve‑team coach] Patrick Vieira, also working with young players. We have to have a different style in the club and that is why I am here. It is the way Manchester City must work in the next few years because it is impossible, every year, to buy three, four or five players. We need to work with young players, with the under‑21s. Pellegrini boarded a flight to South Africa last night with a 30-man squad ahead of the club's summer tour, which also includes a two-game trip to Hong Kong and fixtures in Germany and Finland, admitting that efforts are still being made to recruit new players. Negotiations are continuing in an effort to secure deals for Sevilla forward Alvaro Negredo and Fiorentina's attacking midfielder ­Stevan Jovetic, but Pellegrini insisted that he will not be rushed into adding to his squad. "I am not sure if they [signings] can arrive when we are in South Africa or Hong Kong, but it is important to arrive," Pellegrini said. We are not in a hurry. We have people and choices. We have two strikers and we need another one but I am not talking about any names. We need a strong squad with two players in each position. We are trying to have a strong squad in all positions. If that will bring us trophies, perfect, we have more chances to win that way. In the same way, we are working with young players and we will continue to do that. We need good players. Good English, Argentinian, South American, whatever. Having insisted that City's supporters would "always back the manager," in response to claims that a section of the fans remain loyal to Mancini, Pellegrini disclosed that he almost took the City job once before - in 2007 - during the ownership of Thaksin Shinawatra. I have had two chances to manage in England before. One was to Manchester City but with the other owners, a year before the current owners. The other was Liverpool [in 2010] and I was very near, after Real Madrid, to manage Liverpool. It was not the right moment, but now it is the right moment.