It looks like being a lean year for English clubs in the Champions League, but anyone who has kept an eye on the betting markets won’t be surprised.

Bayern Munich and Barcelona were 5/2 and 4/1 favourites before their matches this week, whereas Manchester City were 14s and Arsenal more than 20s.

While it’s disappointing, the harsh reality is that over the last few years we seem to have been lacking at the very top level.

And it begs the question about whether it’s down to managers or players?

With Chelsea, you could argue that when the manager has got it right, they have won the Champions League and they have won the Europa League, but it doesn’t matter what a manager says or does it’s results that count.

One manager I believe has been sadly lacking in recent weeks is Manuel Pellegrini at City.

He is looking more and more like an emperor with no clothes.

In their first real test of the Champions League against Bayern, he naively went with the 4-4-2 he had played all season and got ripped apart.

Then in the second leg, he went to Germany and wasn’t even aware of how many goals they needed to qualify!

That’s one of the most unbelievable admissions I have ever heard at top level, and it’s something you wouldn’t expect of a Junior Sunday League boss.

In the Premier League match against Chelsea, Jose Mourinho totally out-thought him and, while Pellegrini reacted in the FA Cup and won, anyone could have told him they needed to strengthen midfield a bit more.

Then, this week, he plays Martin Demichelis against Barcelona – a central midfield player operating as a stop-gap centre half. How on earth can he deal with someone as mobile as Lionel Messi?

Lescott and Kompany are the best combination, one right footed the other left, yet so often managers pin their colours to a certain player and it ends up taking them down and losing them their job.

It happened with Mancini at City when he stuck with Matija Nastasic, much to the manager’s cost.

The best managers very quickly assess when they need to get rid of a player, no matter how talented he can be. The perfect example is Mourinho with Juan Mata. He was the best player in the Premier League last year but, because he wasn’t going to conform, he had to go.

What I have to say is that with City looking like they are going out of the Champions League, I do think they will win our title.

But until I see something from Pellegrini with is good, clever and intelligent, the jury will remain out on his ability.

Just a footnote, we at Skybet are sponsoring the Skybet Supreme at the Cheltenham Festival and, tomorrow, we have our big trial at Kempton.

It won’t be a huge field for the event, but one of the Supreme favourites – the Paul Nicholls-trained Irving – is heading to Kempton and that will be great to see.

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