Pep Guardiola tells Manchester City players that European agony can spur them on

For all the pain and disappointment of Champions League failure felt at Manchester City this week, it could be that the biggest losers turn out to be Liverpool.

For City and their coach Pep Guardiola, Europe remains unconquered. It will have to wait. Again.

But now, with the focus narrowed and the horizon shrunk, City have five games to negotiate to pip Liverpool to the Premier League title. It would be a surprise now if they did not manage it.

Pep Guardiola has urged Manchester City to use their European agony to spur them on

Less than two days after one of the most remarkable games of football many of us have seen, Guardiola sat down on Friday to look both backwards and forwards while wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the message #LIFE. It seemed appropriate.

City’s season did not die at the hands of Tottenham at the Etihad on Wednesday, it merely took on a different shape. Quirkily, Spurs are the opponents in east Manchester in the Premier League on Saturday lunchtime and it is there that City’s quest for a different kind of glory will start anew.

‘What happened on Wednesday, I think is just part of life,’ said Guardiola.

‘Football and life are not easy. You have to fight and react. We have to live with these situations, accept them. It will be on our minds but looking back will help us to move forward. It was a tough night but the day after we move forward. These players have the opportunity to show they can do that. They can get back what they deserve.’

Guardiola does not do sanguine terribly well, no matter how hard he may try. Which football manager really does?

Guardiola is eager for his side to bounce back and go on to win the Premier League

Guardiola is eager for his side to bounce back and go on to win the Premier League

This week’s European exit will have hurt him on many levels. It is, after all, eight years since he has been to a final.

But he nevertheless managed to strike just about the right tone on Friday. Guardiola was particularly verbose at his lunchtime press gathering but if his message to his players was to be slimmed down into one of those awful motivational slogans you see painted on walls at training grounds, it would be something like: Don’t ignore the pain. Use it.

‘If you believe this defeat doesn’t hurt, or that we can just forget it, I’d say that’s not true,’ he said.

‘I want to see my players know and understand what they did on Wednesday. It will take time but we have to live with that feeling. What we lived last Wednesday was incredible. We were lucky to live it. 

‘More than 55,000 people were happy then devastated in a second. There is not another activity in this world you can put in those same limits.

City were left dejected on Wednesday but could still end up winning three trophies this season

City were left dejected on Wednesday but could still end up winning three trophies this season

‘So it will remain in our hearts. I don’t want to see the players saying it doesn’t matter. Did you all enjoy the game? It was fantastic, eh? It was not boring.’

With Liverpool at Cardiff on Sunday and looking forward to a Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, City’s own season sits at something of a crossroads. They have already won the Carabao Cup and will play Watford in the FA Cup final next month.

MANCHESTER CITY’S REMAINING FIXTURES 

Premier League:

Saturday: Tottenham (home)

Wednesday: Manchester United (away)

April 28: Burnley (away)

May 4: Leicester (home)

May 12: Brighton (away)

FA Cup:

May 18: Watford (neutral) 

One trophy may yet become three and they would call that domestic Treble another step forward. What matters most, though, is the Premier League and it is hard to shake the feeling that if they win their next two games — they are two points behind with a game in hand — they will be almost there.

After Tottenham on Saturday comes Manchester United at Old Trafford next Wednesday. Neither fixture looks as tricky as it did two or three weeks ago. 

Tottenham will be missing half a dozen players on Saturday and will surely be feeling the mental and physical toll of Wednesday’s epic. United, meanwhile, have reverted to rather mundane type after their initial uplift under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Nothing in the Premier League is ever simple but weeks like this are when City really should benefit from the depth of their squad and the experience accumulated steadily over the last four or five years.

Whoever wins the League will have done it the hard way. Increasingly there is little love lost between City and Liverpool, and that is a shame.

Both have done great things for the magnetism of the Premier League in recent times and have now set a standard for everybody else to aspire to. Handily for Guardiola, he will be able to freshen things up on Saturday. 

Unused on his substitutes’ bench in midweek sat Gabriel Jesus and Riyad Mahrez, while Leroy Sane played for only six minutes.

If Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham players — or Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool for that matter — hoped City might arrive on Saturday under-prepared or fatigued, they may wish to reconsider.

Guardiola admits that he is unsure how City will react to their Champions League exit

Guardiola admits that he is unsure how City will react to their Champions League exit

Mentally, City do face a question and they will go one of two ways. Disappointment can damage players but a sense of injustice can propel them forwards. On Saturday it is surely likely that City will fly into the game fuelled by a need to cleanse their system of frustration.

For all that Guardiola has been magnanimous about Spurs’ win, it is quite clear he has not quite yet got Fernando Llorente’s crucial ‘handball’ goal out of his mind.

‘I don’t know how we will react,’ added Guardiola.

‘We have been knocked out before and we reacted well. But I don’t know. We are so sad. We had incredible hopes to go through. I feel really proud for playing like we did in both games, especially the second game. It was no surrender, go until the end.’

As a motto for the remainder of the season, that would work well. Go until the end. City’s levels in the Premier League have been astonishing once again this season and if they need it they also have a little history on their side.

Last season’s Champions League quarter-final exit was followed by a tough League game. Back then the same questions were being asked of them. Back then they responded by beating Tottenham 3-1.

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