A Case for Manuel Pellegrini

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

His work at Villarreal is comparable to Moyes at Everton imo. At Villarreal, he got the 2nd place finish ahead of Barca, the CL semis and 1 quarter-final run.

Also, Pellegrini came to Malaga only in 2010. in his first full season in Malaga, he got them into CL - improvement doesn't happen overnight and getting top 4 in first full-season was a big achievement for Malaga regardless of the money spent.

He was then forced to sell his best players Cazorla, Rondon and then Monreal and yet they are in the race for Top 4 again and also reached the CL quarters. In complete contrast to your last point - This season Malaga have overperformed inspite of financial struggles and sale of top players.

Spending last 3 seasons (the amount of time Pelligrini has been at Malaga) by position in standings in Spain

Barcelona-56M

Real Madrid-115M

Athletico- (negative 13M)

Real Sociedad- 6M

Malaga-37M

Valencia- (Negative 55M)

Real Betis-500K

etc...Yes, Malaga had to sell a lot of players this year, but almost every Spanish team does that. Malaga's spending over the past 3 years (or 5 years) is easily the third highest in Spain. They simply are not doing particularly well for the money they've spent. La Liga is spectacularly noncompetitive after the top-2. The league is in massive disarray with bankrupt teams everywhere. Even a tiny bit of spending will propel a team into competition for a CL spot. It's not the same in England. It's much harder to reach CL spots. I'm not saying Pellegrini is a bad coach, he'd be fine, most managers would do well at Chelsea, just that he's hardly some genius.

[Strike 7,271]

He arrived in the middle of 2010-11 season. So You are considering only 1 full season of football in the end. A season in which Malaga finished 4th and qualified for the CL.

Malaga scraped relegation the year before Pellegrini came. There was a lot of work to be done to the squad in order to get them to the top and naturally in the first window, they spent big. But they did get 4th and that was the objective. Now Malaga are very much like Everton now but in even worse financial strain.

Spending last 3 seasons (the amount of time Pelligrini has been at Malaga) by position in standings in Spain

Barcelona-56M

Real Madrid-115M

Athletico- (negative 13M)

Real Sociedad- 6M

Malaga-37M

Valencia- (Negative 55M)

Real Betis-500K

etc...Yes, Malaga had to sell a lot of players this year, but almost every Spanish team does that. Malaga's spending over the past 3 years (or 5 years) is easily the third highest in Spain. They simply are not doing particularly well for the money they've spent. La Liga is spectacularly noncompetitive after the top-2. The league is in massive disarray with bankrupt teams everywhere. Even a tiny bit of spending will propel a team into competition for a CL spot. It's not the same in England. It's much harder to reach CL spots. I'm not saying Pellegrini is a bad coach, he'd be fine, most managers would do well at Chelsea, just that he's hardly some genius.

Yes, Spanish teams sell players but you have to note that Malaga lost 10 players or something. That includes the playmaker - Cazorla, his 2 strikers - Rondon and van Nistelrooy, Joris Mathijsen and finally Nacho Monreal.

Pellegrini has had to restructure the squad this season. I don't see how being forced to change the core of the team is equivalent to spending a lot and underachieving. They've maintained their progress this season inspite of having to look for bargains. . Pellegrini has got several loan deals - Santa Cruz, Piazon, Lugano and free agents Javier Saviola, Onyewu and Manuel Iturra to complement his squad now. Isn't that the same as Everton? Oh wait, I am quite sure that Everton spent more than Malaga this season.

The case for Pellegrini spending a lot and underachieving starts and ends at Real Madrid.