Manchester City are reportedly stalling on officially appointing Manuel Pellegrini their new manager in a bid to save £3.2 million.

Pellegrini agreed to join City as Roberto Mancini’s replacement weeks ago, but all has gone silent at the Etihad, while the media waits for the barrage of staged photos of the Chilean holding a sky blue scarf aloft.

But it has now emerged that City are cannily planning to land Pellegrini on the cheap, as they play a waiting game with his current club, Malaga.

The cash strapped La Liga side has not paid Pellegerini’s salary for two months, and it seems that City will be legally allowed to sign him without paying compensation if Malaga defaults on his salary for three months in a row.

That means that Pellegrini will probably only be announced as City boss early next month.

Meanwhile, he has already been included in the Premier League club’s planning for next season, even though he has not been officially employed there yet.

After meeting with City chief executive Ferran Soriano and sporting director Txiki Begiristain, Pellegrini has been appraised of the club’s transfer intentions, and it is believed that the pre-season transfers of Fernandinho from Shakhtar Donetsk and Jesus Navas from Sevilla had the incoming manager’s stamp of approval.

Back at Malaga, they probably cannot wait for the month to end so that they can officially unveil their own new manager, another former Real Madrid boss- Bernd Schuster- in order to set their own plans for the future in motion.