KIEV, Ukraine -- Manuel Pellegrini insists Manchester City are not under more pressure in Wednesday's game against Dynamo Kiev after prioritising the Champions League ahead of the FA Cup.
The City manager played a weakened side in Sunday's 5-1 FA Cup fifth-round defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, while resting key players Sergio Aguero, David Silva, Yaya Toure, Joe Hart, Fernandinho and Vincent Kompany.
Pellegrini was unhappy that the Chelsea tie was switched to a Sunday for television -- less than 24 hours before his squad flew out to Ukraine -- while he also had six players unavailable through injury.
The Chiliean does at least have Eliaquim Mangala back for the round-of-16 first-leg clash with Dynamo and does not expect his decision to field a second-string side at the weekend to influence Wednesday's game.
Pellegrini told a news conference: "I don't think one game is linked with the other one. Unfortunately for us, we have to make a difficult decision against Chelsea but it was the only clear decision we had to make in this moment.
"If we had a completely fit squad, then a lot more experienced players could have played that game but that was not the case. We had just 13 players so I think that it is our intention to continue in all of the competitions. But we couldn't do that, we had to take a chance but this is absolutely different."
City's defeat to Chelsea was their third loss in successive games and the club face a crucial period of the season with the match at Dynamo followed by the Capital One Cup final against Liverpool at Wembley on Sunday.
And with City six points off the top of the Premier League and struggling to maintain a title challenge, two more defeats could spell disaster for their hopes of claiming any silverware this season.
However, Pellegrini says he is not worried about the form of his players and insists they are focused on getting a good result from the first leg at the NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium.
The Chilean added: "I think the problem is to try and play well tomorrow. We are not thinking about the future because we don't know when players will return.
"The important thing for our players tomorrow is to have a good performance. We know it's 180 minutes -- it's just the first leg -- so we know it's the performance [that matters]."
Dynamo, who have not played since Dec. 9 because of a winter break, will be boosted by a large home crowd after UEFA overturned the decision to play the game behind closed doors.
The club had been told to play three games in Europe without fans in attendance after racism and crowd disturbances, but the decision was changed earlier this month after an appeal following good behaviour.
Asked about the decision, Pellegrini said: "One of the worst things you can do is play in an empty stadium without fans. In this case, fans of Kiev have a lesson about what happened.
"For me, I know maybe for the home team it's not an advantage to play without fans, but for football it's important. I hope in this case it will be a lesson for these fans and tomorrow we have a normal game."