Manchester City can hit top note by sealing qualifying spot in Champions League with defeat of Sevilla in Group D

Manuel Pellegrini releaxed ahead of Sevilla game where Manchester City can take step towards knockout stages.

While Jose Mourinho lurches from one disastrous result to the next, and Manchester United sleep-walk through goalless draws, it must be of some consolation to Manuel Pellegrini that the most pressing concern on his horizon is the likely reaction of the Manchester City fans to the Uefa Champions League anthem on Tuesday night.

The progress of City of late has been serene relative to the problems of certain other Premier League big beasts and they can qualify for the knockout round of the Champions League with two games to spare if results go their way on Tuesday.

The travelling support will doubtless be vociferous when the Zadok the Priest variation strikes up but meanwhile Pellegrini is not shouldering anything like the burden he was at this stage of the competition one year ago.

Then, City failed to win until their fifth game against Bayern Munich and qualified with eight points; this time they could have nine points from four games and a place in the knockout round. They need to win themselves, and for Juventus to win away to Borussia Monchengladbach, but the two late victories over the Germans and then Seville in Manchester have transformed their fortunes.

The Uefa charge over the club fans booing the Champions League anthem appears little more than a source of amusement now for Pellegrini, not a man who is easily amused. “I think everyone has the right to boo or protest about different things,” he said. “It is important the way you do it. If they feel something is wrong, everyone has the right to say what they want.”

He added: “My general opinion is that they [the City fans] will boo because Uefa is not doing this very well.”

Both Gaël Clichy and Fabian Delph are back for Tuesday night’s game in a squad still missing Sergio Agüero, David Silva, Samir Nasri and Pablo Zabaleta and yet expected to be too strong for last season’s Europa League winners. Jesus Navas, who played for Seville for 10 years before he joined City, and whose picture adorns the walls of the stadium, is in contention to start but Pellegrini said he could offer no guarantees.

After nine years working in La Liga, Pellegrini concluded that while Spain had the better “technical league”, the Premier League had greater quality throughout.

“When I arrived in 2004 there were six or seven important teams, including Real Madrid and Barcelona, there was Sevilla, Betis, Valencia, Athletic Bilbao,” he said. “The last years there were just the two teams, and Atlético Madrid. In the Premier League you have five very strong teams who can win the league. The other teams have more money to have very good teams.”

That level of competition, as well as the gruelling Christmas period, contributed to the struggles of English teams in the Champions League knockout stages, he reasoned. As a club who have never made it past the second round of the competition, that will not be an excuse the City hierarchy will want to hear again. For now though, City will settle for a calmer progress than they have enjoyed in recent years.