Norwich City vs Man City: Pellegrini wants to pile pressure on title rivals

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini believes his team will ramp up the pressure on their title rivals if they secure back-to-back Premier League victories starting at Norwich City on 12 March. Although Norwich are struggling down in 18th place, Pellegrini believes it will be a tough match.

"Well I always say when you must play against teams that are in the relegated position it's always very difficult because they have not too much to lose, they know that they must try to win their points, especially at home so I am sure that tomorrow we are going to find a very difficult team and it will be a very tough game if you want to win the three points," said Pellegrini at a news conference on 11 March.

City face a potentially pivotal week in their season, with a Champions League last-16 second leg match against Dynamo Kiev and a domestic derby clash with Manchester United following their match against Norwich. City, who have a game in hand over all their fellow title chasers, are currently 10 points adrift of leaders Leicester City with 10 matches of their league campaign remaining.

Yet with Leicester being novices when it comes to handling a title run-in and rivals Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal stumbling in recent weeks, the City manager feels his side have a chance to exert some pressure at the summit and stressed the importance of winning the next two Premier League matches.

"For our team, we know that we must win if we want to continue involving the title until the end. If we aggregate that we can qualify for the first time to the quarter-final of the Champions League, of course another important achievement , so I hope that we will do it but we must start thinking just in Norwich tomorrow and after that we'll see the game that we play, we have to play on Tuesday," said Pellegrini, who is leaving City to be replaced by Pep Guardiola at the end of the season.