Will Brendan Rodgers and Manuel Pellegrini have jobs next week?

In-depth: Liverpool are out of the Champions League. Manchester City's hopes hang in the balance tonight. And the axe looms over both managers.

City's latest troubled bid to qualify from the group stage will reach a potentially dramatic conclusion at the Stadio Olimpico in the Italian capital on Wednesday evening. City are not only vying with Roma for the runners-up spot in Group E behind Bayern Munich, but also with CSKA Moscow as all three sides go into the final round of fixtures level on five points. The permutations are complicated but basically City need to win and hope CSKA do not beat Bayern, or claim a score draw and hope CSKA lose. After reaching the last 16 for the first time last season, City were quietly confident of making a much bigger impression this time around and a failure to qualify could spark speculation over Pellegrini's position. 
But asked if that might happen, the Chilean - whose appointment was influenced by his past record in the competition - said: "I don't think so. It is a very important game and all of us want to qualify but I don't think that what happens will have some link about my future in the club. "I have never received any kind of pressure from the club. I hope we are going to qualify but I have nothing to be (concerned) about my future here." It's too late now, of course, for Liverpool. They will now compete in the Europa League after only managing a 1-1 draw at home to Basel, who progress at their expense. The failure could seal Rodgers' fate as manager despite an excellent season last time out, with qualification for next year's Champions League already appearing to be an uphill task. On the third-placed group finish, Rodgers was frank, admitting: "Over the course of the games we weren't good enough, we didn't get enough points and ultimately went out. "First half we weren't good enough. Technically we were way short. "Our positioning wasn't good. The second half we were much better on that front. In the last 10 minutes, we just couldn't find the final pass."

                                  OUR VIEW
 It's possible that, should Man City join Liverpool on the Champions League scrapheap tonight, there could be two big-name festive sackings in the Premier League. Top-level football is that competitive - and club chairmen that ruthlessly fickle - that even a coach who returned the Premier League title to the Etihad and one who almost broke an over-two-decade drought for that same prize at Anfield could be removed for not keeping that pace going at all times. However, of the two surely Rodgers is more likely to remain. Champions League football is something Liverpool feel they should be participating in every season, but even their most staunch supporters would admit their qualification last season was, for now, the exception not the rule and that the club needs long-term strengthening to return to their dizzy heights. Is Brendan Rodgers the man to build them back up long-term, or a one-year flash in the pan sparked by Luis Suarez's crazy form? Who knows - but there's a chance he'll be given time to prove which of the last two seasons was the one-off. City, meanwhile, are the league champions and have one of the biggest budgets in Europe. They absolutely crave continental validation via a Champions League trophy. It's hard to see any manager on the planet surviving repeated failure in the competition, even if they're succeeding domestically. Roberto Mancini's plight proved that. ELSEWHERE IN MEDIA Former Liverpool star Phil Thompson was critical of Rodgers' tactics against Basel - a recurring area of concern this season after Suarez's departure - but remains optimistic he will remain in charge to attempt to improve things in the January transfer window. “The manager has to have a good look at it – we’ve spoken about the change in personnel with his signings," he told Sky Sports Soccer Special. "Are they good enough to take over the mantle from Steven Gerrard? At the moment it’s not been good enough. “(Rodgers) certainly has to go into the transfer market and get quality. Instead of a whole load of players, maybe spend the money on top quality.” The Guardian's Jamie Jackson, meanwhile, had this to say of Pellegrini's position: "A night in Rome may prove the defining moment of Manuel Pellegrini’s Manchester City career. "The demand from the club’s owners is material progress in the Champions League. "This means that after Pellegrini took the Sheikh Mansour project into the last 16 for the first time last season, the quarter-finals are this term’s target. "The vagaries of football make reading the runes of any manager’s future an imprecise science. Especially when the side Pellegrini made Premier League champions – and claimed the Capital One Cup with – in his inaugural campaign have just won five consecutive league games to force them back into the title race. "Yet Roberto Mancini put himself under immense and what proved fatal pressure when his City team were knocked out at the group stage of the competition in their 2012-13 season as the defending domestic champions."