Manchester City’s performance, not Chelsea’s points lead, is on Manuel Pellegrini’s mind

Manuel Pellegrini says he is not concerned about Chelsea’s growing Premier League lead and is more bothered by the standard of his side’s performance after needing a late goal to snatch a 1-1 draw at the Etihad Stadium.

Sergio Aguero and Manchester City were smothered by Hull City defenders in a 1-1 draw at Etihad Stadium yesterday. Andrew Yates / Reuters

MANCHESTER CITY 1 HULL CITY 1

Manchester City - Milner 90' Hull City - Myler 35'

Man of the match - Robbie Brady (Hull City)

MANCHESTER // Manuel Pellegrini said he was not concerned about Chelsea's growing Premier League lead after dropping points against Hull City.

But the Chilean is bothered by the standard of his side’s performance after needing a late goal to snatch a 1-1 draw at the Etihad Stadium.

Manchester City had looked to be heading towards a highly damaging loss after David Meyler struck for Hull in the 35th minute, until substitute James Milner struck a superb injury-time free kick to grab a point.

The result still left City seven points behind leaders Chelsea, without a win in five games and looking bereft of the inspiration they will need to mount a successful title defence.

“We are not concerned about the gap – we are concerned about how we can return to our normal performance, how we can score goals again and resolve the problems that other teams are putting in their box,” Pellegrini said.

“Once again we couldn’t create space against a team with 10 players behind the ball.”

Pellegrini tried to look on the positive side, knowing that the picture would have looked even worse had Milner not staged his late salvage act.

“Before the game if you’d said we were going to draw against Hull I wouldn’t have liked it, but the way we did it was not so bad with a goal in the last minute,” the coach said.

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