Football
Richard Jolly, ESPN.com writer 9y

Chelsea not better than Manchester City - Manuel Pellegrini

MANCHESTER -- Manuel Pellegrini is adamant champions Chelsea are not much better than his team and rued the inconsistency that he believes cost Manchester City the title.

Jose Mourinho's side won the Premier League with four games remaining but Pellegrini feels 2013-14 champions City had the better of their two 1-1 draws between the clubs.

City are 11 points behind Chelsea but Pellegrini does not think there is a gulf between the sides and highlighted their results against the current bottom three as crucial factors.

His team drew 1-1 at home to Hull, who are 18th, and 2-2 away at QPR, who prop up the table, and only took one point from a possible six against relegated Burnley, drawing 2-2 at the Etihad Stadium and losing 1-0 at Turf Moor.

"I don't think we are very far from Chelsea," he said in a news conference. "In the games we play against Chelsea, I didn't see a better team than our team but they were more consistent during the whole year. That is why they won the title.

"If you review our season, we lost a lot of points against not small teams, but the three teams in the relegation places, we lost nine points."

Pellegrini has accepted City underperformed in the two domestic cups, where they were knocked out by Newcastle and Middlesbrough, but feels they did not get everything wrong this season.

"It is not a disaster," he explained. "We did not do all bad. We were v unlucky in the CL [Champions League] to have two draws against Barcelona. We did very bad in both cups this year, very bad. In Premier League, it was not a good Premier League but if you cannot win the title it is good to be second.

"I don't think we are very far from Chelsea because I don't think they are a better team than our team but we need to improve."

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