Manuel Pellegrini welcomed Manchester City's latest financial results as they recorded their lowest annual losses of the Sheikh Mansour era, but warned that fans should not expect it to mean he can spend heavily in January.
City announced a loss of 23 million pounds in their figures for the 2013-14 financial year on Wednesday, and would have come close to breaking even but for a 16 million-pound fine from UEFA for breaching financial fair play (FFP).
Pellegrini feels it means City's days of heavy spending -- which peaked when they posted a loss of 197 million pounds in 2010-11 -- are at an end, but defended their approach by saying the only way to catch up with the established powers was to invest in expensive players.
The Chilean said in a news conference: "It is normal that a club that wants to try to fight with the biggest clubs must spend a lot of money in the first four or five years to try to have a good squad and try to have important players. After that it is important to try to have a balance and I think that this club is working in this way. It is positive."
City were limited to a 49 million-pound net spend this season as part of their FFP punishment from UEFA but, even though the sales of Jack Rodwell and Javi Garcia should give them leeway to buy, Pellegrini argued their financial results do not automatically mean he will bring in more players.
"I don't think one thing has any relation with the other," he said. "We are not thinking about January or about the amount of money that we must spend. You remember that we have a restriction about the amount of players we can have in our squad and also about the amount we can spend."
City have won their last four matches, scoring 12 goals, and Pellegrini feels they are switched on again after a difficult spell of results.
"In football, just as one thing makes a switch [go] on or off," he continued. "I think the draw that we had with CSKA [Moscow in October] makes a difficult moment for the team and in that moment we start losing, though we are not playing bad.
"After that [Capital One Cup] game we lost against Newcastle, we lost against the Russian team here also, and against West Ham. It was not a good moment. Maybe after we beat Bayern Munich, the switch changed again and we started playing in the way we normally do."
City host an out-of-form Everton side on Saturday with Pellegrini adding: "I am sure that against our team here they will be a very strong team.
"It is a difficult game because normally the teams of Roberto Martinez play very well. They were very attractive games [last season] because both teams try to play as an offensive team. Everton like to have possession of the ball and they have technical players so I hope for the fans we see a very good game."