Manager Pellegrini confident of staying at City

Manuel Pellegrini is confident he will keep his job as Manchester City manager as he heads for crunch talks with the football club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.

The City chief is expected to fly in from Abu Dhabi for Sunday's final game against Southampton at the Etihad Stadium and use the trip to hold an end-of-season review with Pellegrini, dailymail.co.uk reported on Friday.

He will seek answers for a disappointing campaign in which City have finished empty-handed. They surrendered their English Premier League title to Chelsea and went out of the Champions League tamely against Barcelona for the second year in a row.

"I am always confident because it's my way of thinking. I signed a contract here for three years. I have one year more and I never felt any problem inside the club to finish my contract," Pellegrini said.

"We can sit down to have a conversation because it's normal, but we are having conversations every week. So it's not a special conversation at the end of the season.

"It's better to win the title but if you can't then it's best to be second. But that doesn't mean I'm happy with the season."

Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola, Borussia Dortmund's Jurgen Klopp, Atletico Madrid's Diego Simeone and Real Madrid's Carlo Ancelotti are among the top coaches who have been linked with the City job in recent months.