'Never happened before' - Pep Guardiola concedes Man City defeat in damning verdict

Pep Guardiola has given up hope of getting his Manchester City team back this season and told them all to play for their futures.

Ever since injuries bit for the Blues in October, the City boss has been adamant that his biggest wish has been to have his squad available to him. Having pushed back against a summer rebuild and spoken aloud his reluctance to spend in January, Guardiola insisted that when fit his squad would match anybody in Europe.

That looked like coming true against Real Madrid on Tuesday night as with their lowest number of absences since September City took the game to the European champions. Even with injuries in the middle of the game to Jack Grealish and Manu Akanji, they still led 2-1 with five minutes to go but threw the game away in what has been a familiar tale.

Guardiola has become resigned to his team gifting unacceptable goals to opponents and on Friday conceded that his ambition of having this squad back to their best is not going to happen. In a remarkable admission, he went on to say that City are struggling with and without the ball this season.

"The big, big success of the team was when we were able to do 20, 25, 30 sequences of passes in the opponents’ half, and now we are not able to do it," he said. "Of course you have to insist; the team is built for that. The success is because of that, to build the team in that way.

"But now we don't do it because we want to score, because we want to accelerate, because the people, they're like, ah, let's get the second goal. No, no, stop, stop. First to score, we have to play, you know? And it's difficult to do it because the team are so… look at tomorrow, you know? Do you think we can compete against the physicality from Newcastle?

"If you want to