The Chilean has been widely touted as City's number one target to replace the sacked Roberto Mancini, and announced this week that he would leave Malaga at the end of the season for "sporting reasons".

But when asked about the possibility of Pellegrini joining the club, Richards preferred to laud the outgoing Mancini.

"That's in the papers so everybody is speaking about it," he said. "There (are) always late runners coming in. Whoever it is we'll give 100 percent.

"I'd like to thank (Roberto) Mancini for what he did. He brought an FA Cup, a Premier League and a Charity Shield for me and I'd never won anything before that so I'm happy for that."

Lescott also avoided discussing the issue, despite being repeatedly benched by Mancini toward the end of his reign.

"Let's not go into any of that," he said. "The decision has been made by the club and we have to respect that as players. We work for Man City and as I say, they saw fit to part ways with Roberto (Mancini).

"We're just going to apply ourselves in the right way for the new one. We finished second in the league which is not a bad thing, but also, over the last three years, we've progressed which is what the club is trying to do"