Manchester City fans in the Football Transfer Tavern are encouraged by their manager’s coy attitude after talkSPORT alluded to Manuel Pellegrini moving for striking reinforcements in January.

The Citizens are experiencing a shortage of strikers at the moment with with Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic all out injured and the Chilean boss has been forced to play without a striker with James Milner as a makeshift number nine.

Fustratingly the Sky Blues have Alvaro Negredo out on loan at Valencia and with the last-16 clash with Barcelona looming, he is desperate to find a replacement.

With no strikers, he is very reliant on his creative and attacking midfielders and thankfully a brace from David Silva and a strike from Yaya Toure allowed them to see off Crystal Palace 3-0 on Saturday.

But despite a resounding victory, this doesn’t hide their deficiencies up front and Pellegrini says he is happy with how his squad played without their first team strikers.

“We knew we had to play in a different way than we normally do because we don’t have strikers at this moment, but I thought we did a great job,” he added.

“I’m very satisfied with the result, to have no strikers and still score three goals is not easy, especially against a team like against Crystal Palace who defend very well.”