Man City players have extra incentive to make Pep Guardiola job harder

Pep Guardiola was especially pleased with victory at Leeds because of the looming presence of the most successful team in the history of the European Cup.

The pre-match insistence was that the most important game is the next one, but afterwards there was an acceptance that it was impossible to keep all minds focused solely on Elland Road. If the Amazon cameras had been filming the away dressing room on Saturday as they were at Goodison back in 2018 ahead of City's Champions League quarter-final with Liverpool, they may well have picked up some chatter about Real Madrid as conversations and thoughts inevitably pushed ahead to Wednesday's showdown at the Bernabeu.

Little wonder that - as much as everyone is salivating over the Real game - the manager is looking forward to the landscape for the Blues post-Wednesday. Once the Champions League semi-final has been decided, one way or the other, City have four matches left in the league, one after the other where they know exactly what they have to do to lift the Premier League title.

Also read:Two Man City players agree on confidence levels vs Real Madrid after Liverpool test

Football at the top level is easier when you do not have to focus on multiple competitions - especially the sharp end of them. It is no coincidence that City's best run of the season came after they had secured qualification for the Champions League knockout rounds and did not have to think about Europe for over three months.

However, this City squad do not make things easy for themselves in their pursuit of the biggest trophies, and the impact of the upcoming Real Madrid game was present in the lineup selected at Elland Road. Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva were both left on the bench for the