Manuel Pellegrini is quietly shedding that 'noisy neighbour' tag at Manchester City

• Manuel Pellegrini has been a calming influence since arriving at Man City
• Eliaquim Mangala has completed a £32m move to the Etihad Stadium
• David Silva and Samir Nasri  have signed new contracts with Sergio Aguero and Vincent Kompany set to follow
• Frank Lampard has joined Premier League champions on a short-term loan
• Jack Rodwell has left for Sunderland with Javier Garcia, Micah Richards and Scott Sinclair also likely to depart 

 

No sooner had they paid £31.9million to sign Eliaquim Mangala than Manchester City were announcing David Silva’s new five-year contract on Tuesday.

Silva will not be the only player to agree new terms at the Etihad in the weeks ahead — with Sergio Aguero and Vincent Kompany expected to be next.

Mangala is City’s sixth signing of the summer and by far their most expensive. And if anyone missed it, Frank Lampard has joined the Barclays Premier League champions as well.

Amid all the headlines and hype this summer, it would be easy to forget that City won the title race last season.

Louis van Gaal’s arrival across town at Manchester United has understandably commanded huge interest, while Chelsea and Liverpool have emerged as the biggest spenders in the transfer market.

Arsenal, still dizzy on their FA Cup triumph in May, made what was seen as a statement of intent by comfortably beating the champions 3-0 in the Community Shield last weekend.

But if all that is meant to set alarm bells ringing at City, they aren’t paying too much attention.

‘We’re not really here,’ has become a popular ditty in the blue half of Manchester in recent years and never has it been more appropriate than now.

Manuel Pellegrini was brought in to do his talking on the pitch, and any reporter who has tried to get a headline out of the Chilean over the course of the last year knows just how well he has succeeded.

The antithesis of his predecessor Roberto Mancini, Pellegrini is only interested in silverware not soundbites and he expects the same from his players.

Yaya Toure’s bizarre ‘cake-gate’ saga aside, the days of star players like Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotelli kicking up a fuss, or routinely being pictured kicking one another around the training pitch, are in the past.

Nothing sums up Pellegrini’s City better than their pre-season movements this summer. They started with a week in Scotland and, you suspect, the manager would happily have stayed there rather than travel to America.

But while United were providing the headline act in Los Angeles and playing Real Madrid in front of a 109,000 sellout crowd in Michigan, City were flying under the radar in Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis.

Even when they appeared at Yankee Stadium, it was opponents Liverpool who drew significantly more support from the New York public. That will not worry Pellegrini. Nor will he be unduly concerned by Sunday’s defeat to Arsenal at Wembley.

City were missing no fewer than seven World Cup players and that does not include Mangala, now officially the most expensive defender in the history of British football.

It is worth noting that Pellegrini’s side lost 3-1 to Arsenal in Helsinki on the same weekend last year and still went on to win a Premier League and Capital One Cup double.

City have built on that success, paying FC Porto £44m to sign Mangala and his teammate Fernando. Willy Caballero has been brought in to provide stiffer competition for England goalkeeper Joe Hart. Bacary Sagna arrived as a free agent from Arsenal and Lampard from Chelsea, albeit via New York.

It wasn’t just the offer of a new £170,000-a-week deal that convinced Silva to commit himself to City until 2019 yesterday, becoming the latest player after Aleksandar Kolarov and Samir Nasri to sign a new contract.

‘Over the last four years we have achieved so much together, establishing City as a dominating force in England and now, when I look around this dressing-room, I can see no reason why we won’t become one of the top teams in the world,’ said Spain’s Silva.

‘It was a straightforward decision to extend my stay here and spend my peak years at Manchester City. Why wouldn’t I want to stay and keep winning trophies with this fantastic team?’

With City’s relatively conservative spending in the transfer market this summer forced upon them by UEFA, there will be outgoings.

Jack Rodwell has been sold to Sunderland and Javi Garcia is on the verge of joining Zenit St Petersburg for £12m.

Matija Nastasic, Scott Sinclair and Micah Richards could all follow. Even then, Pellegrini would have one foreigner too many for his Champions League quota meaning that Alvaro Negredo — sidelined until the end of next month with a fractured metatarsal — could be left out of the squad for Europe.

Either way, business will be conducted like everything else, quietly and efficiently. Those noisy neighbours have got their house in order.