Manuel Pellegrini may have had a tough season but he has guided City to a Champions League spot

Manchester City managed to claw themselves back into a much more respectable position than the one they found themselves in a week ago after they beat Aston Villa in what was a thrilling encounter at the Etihad Stadium. Our season has undergone a major transformation over the past couple of months as our title winning chances got washed away and left us with second place. Second place then went out of our hands as we quickly dropped two places to fourth. Last week, fourth place seemed to be a major doubt as well as Liverpool came perilously close to us. Our critics took that opportunity to go on and speculate how there was a high chance that we could lose out on a Champions League spot thanks to our terrible form coupled with the good results that Liverpool were gathering for themselves. Well, all I can say to those people is this. What exactly were you saying again?

Sergio Aguero opened the scoring for City on early on as Brad Guzan made an unfortunate error

Yes, our performances have dropped over the past few games and we have looked nothing like title contenders in recent times, but all these talks of Manchester City falling out of the Champions League spots are totally unfounded. Yes,  Liverpool were only four points away from us, but four points is a massive obstacle, especially when you have just five games left in the season. I will also admit the fact that I am being able to talk about this issue in a much more composed manner thanks to the six points that we picked up from our last two games. Two consecutive away defeats at the hands of Crystal Palace and then our hometown rivals United left us in a huge spot of bother and I’m sure that I wouldn’t have been able to talk regarding this issue in this manner two weeks ago. In fact, I’d say that I wouldn’t have been able to talk about this issue in this manner even yesterday when our game was on. For a long time, it seemed as if Villa would actually get something out of the game. Yes Aguero did give us an early lead thanks to Brad Guzan’s howler but the way they clawed back into the game was definitely worth a lot of praise.

Fernandinho ensured that City clinched all three points as he scored a 90th minute winner past a helpless Brad Guzan

When Carlos Sanchez equalized for Villa five minutes from time, things seemed pretty bleak and I did not expect a victory to come from it. Thankfully Fernandinho was in the right place at the right time or else we’d have found ourselves in a pretty stressful situation. Had we drawn yesterday and Liverpool won, then they’d be within two points of us and that is surely not something that any Citizen would appreciate. Well, there’s no use wondering about what could have happened and the truth is that we are a whopping nine points off fifth place and with just five games left, I feel that we have another season in the Champions League guaranteed.