LONDON –

By next Wednesday, Manchester City's season could be as good as over, with only the F.A. Cup to keep realistic hopes of silverware alive.

Defeat at home by Manchester United on Sunday and a failure to beat CSKA Moscow at Etihad Stadium three days later will see City almost certainly nine points behind Chelsea and its chances of reaching the knockout stage of the Champions League dead and buried.

City goes into the weekend's fixtures in third place, which hardly gives the impression of a club in crisis, but the Blues are a pale shadow of the side that won the Premier League in some style last May, scoring 102 goals. They have won four, drawn four and lost four of their last 12 matches, the latest defeat a 2-0 home loss to a young and inexperienced Newcastle team in the League Cup which City won last season.

Despite inevitable media speculation, Manuel Pellegrini's job is not under threat yet and there is still time for City to turn its Premier League form around. There are just no signs, no hints that this is imminent. City is lacking confidence, it has still to find a suitable partner for Vincent Kompany in defense, Yaya Toure, Fernando and Fernandinho are playing poorly, David Silva's role presents a problem while in attack only Sergio Aguero is a reliable scorer.

"We must be worried and we must find a solution," said Pellegrini. "We are conceding too easy goals with individual mistakes."

Defeat at the hands of United would increase the pressure on the Chilean, who will surely consider switching from his beloved 4-4-2 to a more pragmatic 4-3-3. While the midfield trio's collective form is a cause for concern, playing Fernando and Fernandinho in front of the back-four with Toure just ahead of them would give City a more solid base in the wake of just two clean sheets in 10 games.

Owner Sheikh Mansour and chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak are unlikely to press the panic button just yet and rightly so. Pellegrini delivered a domestic double, the title and League Cup, in his first year in charge so he surely has a fair amount of credit. City lost three of its opening nine league games last season and had 16 points. From the same amount of matches this time around, City has 17 points.

The difference is that a year ago City looked like it had an extra gear or two, this season it has underachieved, especially in Europe, given the talent at Pellegrini's disposal. To be leading 2-0 in Moscow and failing to close the game out showed a lack of leadership and intelligence.

Pellegrini must take his share of the blame for this season's indifferent form because he is a manager without a Plan B. When things are not going their side's way, the world's top coaches can change a game with substitutions and a tactical switch. The Blues have been behind on 12 occasions this season, winning just three of those games. Pellegrini may change the personnel, but Plan A remains a constant.

It has also not helped City's cause that it has not played the same back-four in successive matches, not because of injuries, but the manager's seeming inability to know what his best defensive line is.

City's batteries are flat and Pellegrini admitted the team "aren't what we used to be right now." A Manchester derby is the ideal platform for the Blues to show why they are champions, but it is a must-win game for them while despite being four points behind their neighbors there is nothing like the pressure on Louis van Gaal.

The Dutchman must decide how to accommodate Wayne Rooney, back after suspension, and whether this can be done with both Robin van Persie and Rademal Falcao in attack. United's defensive weaknesses have been only too apparent though there were signs of improvement in the spirited 1-1 draw with Chelsea last Sunday.

Victory for City would at least keep the title race alive — for another week, anyway — but defeat would make the race rather one-horsed and tighten the media noose around Pellegrini's neck a little more.

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RIO FERDINAND has had a glorious career with Manchester United and England, but his memory has never quite matched his talent.

In 2003 Ferdinand forgot to take a drug test. He was banned for eight months and fined £50,000 by the Football Association.

Last month he was charged by the F.A. for an abusive tweet which contained the word "sket" — a West Indian slang word for a promiscuous woman. Ferdinand failed to respond to the F.A. which on Wednesday banned the Queens Park Rangers defender for three games and fined him £25,000.

Maybe Ferdinand did not forget and chose to ignore the F.A.'s charge. Whatever, it was a costly gesture, the punishment reflecting this and the fact the defender was fined £45,000 two years ago for another abusive tweet.

Is it fair that QPR should be punished for something a player did while not on club duty?

Probably not.

Fines do not hurt millionaires, and the F.A. wanted to send out a message that if players use social media they should be careful what they write. By all means be critical and have fun, but there is a line in the sand which must not be crossed.

On the other hand, the F.A.'s disciplinary system is full of hypocrisy and inconsistency. Referees supremo David Elleray was not charged for making a racist remark to a fellow referee, Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore was not cited for sexist emails, Swansea manager Garry Monk was allowed to call Stoke's Victor Moses a cheat, and Joey Barton made a derogatory remark about Neymar, all without disciplinary comeback.

English football's ruling body likes to hide behind the excuse of the difference between private communication and public comments on Twitter, but in law there is no such distinction.

Ferdinand's biggest error was failing to respond to the F.A.'s charge and though few knew what a "sket" was, he lost the sympathy vote for such arrogance.

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Stat of the week: Since Aston Villa last scored a goal, Watford and Leeds have had five managers between them.

Christopher Davies was a longtime Premier League correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph.