Manchester City can sign best players - Pellegrini

Manuel Pellegrini believes Manchester City have a good
enough profile to attract the world's best players.

City are perennially linked to Barcelona ace Lionel Messi,
while there have been reports they are trying to lure Bayern
Munich boss Pep Guardiola to the Etihad Stadium.

And Pellegrini feels City have achieved a stature which
allows them to compete with Europe's elite clubs for the
game's top talents.

“If you want to be the most important people in football or
one of the most important, you must be able to bring all the
best players here," he told reporters.

“We are always trying to do it but it is not easy because
there are a lot of clubs, five or six, that can do it also.

“That depends on the style, in the work but it is important
not to give advantage in the options you have to buy those
players.”

City will be without Sergio Aguero and Wilfried Bony for
Saturday's meeting with Stoke, and the coach feels Kelechi
Iheanacho is ready to step into the first team, insisting there
is no need to buy replacements in January.

“The squad for this year is ready,” he added. "We are not
thinking to replace for the amount of injuries we’ve had.

“It was a decision last year because we have the three
players injured a lot of times before, so we didn’t want to
take the risk to finish the year in the same way.

"But in that year Kelechi was one year younger so he was
not the player he is today. We had Aguero, Edin Dzeko and
Stevan Jovetic.

"Jovetic and Kun had a lot of injuries in the first half of the
season and Dzeko also. That’s why we decided to bring
Bony.

"I think in this case, the fourth [striker] should be Kelechi."