Money doesn’t do the talking at The Etihad

The world’s best-paid sporting team couldn’t beat bottom-of-the-table Sunderland last Wednesday because, in the words of their manager, they were mentally tired.

Manuel Pellegrini also said that his Manchester City players had difficulty getting the defeat at Liverpool out of their minds.

You’d think that a squad being paid an average salary of £5.337m a year £102,653 a week might possess a bit more resilience than that.

It was a limp, conviction-less performance that didn’t deserve even the single point gifted them by Vito Mannone’s butter fingers.

A season that once promised four trophies increasingly now looks like furnishing only the Capital One Cup.

And that’s not good enough for a sporting institution that pays its players more than Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona not to mention the New York Yankees and the LA Dodgers.

The release of those salary figures 24 hours before what looked like a title-surrendering display was embarrassing. But it wasn’t the only bad news of the week for City.

UEFA’s Club Financial Control Panel has been investigating whether the club has breached Financial Fair Play regulations.

City are one of 76 clubs under scrutiny after posting losses of £149m over the last two seasons. UEFA permit losses of only £37m.

They may be able to write off much of that as permissible expenditure on a new training complex but their £350m, 10-year sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways might be viewed as an attempt to circumvent FFP.

There are a range of sanctions open to UEFA, with the ultimate penalty being expulsion from European competition.

Whatever their verdict, City must accept that expectation levels increase in direct proportion to money spent.

Every year, City pay each of their players an average of £1.4m more than Chelsea, who are ninth-best payers, and £2m more than Liverpool, who are 20th. That’s not the league table they wanted to finish top of.

Last week Pellegrini had a dig at Jose Mourinho and Brendan Rodgers for saying that they were under no pressure to win the title. He virtually accused them of telling porkies.

The Chilean insisted that he thrives under pressure. Well, now he must prove it.