'Not happy' - The furious Man City rant blaming Sweden and Pep Guardiola for Champions League pain

Pep Guardiola has elevated Manchester City in the Champions League, not just to win the competition but to become serial contenders always challenging in the latter stages.

The previous City manager had a different challenge on his hands: get the club past the group stages, which Roberto Mancini had twice failed to do. And while Manuel Pellegrini was able to waltz through to the knockouts at the first attempt, it all fell apart in bizarre fashion with some of the blame placed indirectly with Guardiola.

City were sensational in the 2013/14 under Pellegrini, playing a swashbuckling brand of football with two strikers that saw them still on for the Quadruple when they met the famous Barcelona in the last-16 of the Champions League. However, when Jesus Navas was denied a penalty and then Martin Demichelis was sent off for conceding one that Lionel Messi converted, there was only one thing on Pellegrini's mind: a knockout game two years earlier involving AC Milan that the same referee had been in charge of.

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In Pellegrini's mind, Swedish referee Jonas Eriksson was trying to make up for the fact that he hadn't given Barcelona against AC Milan in their 2012 quarter-final - a performance that had brought unhappiness from their coach Pep Guardiola and the full-blown fury of the Spanish and Catalan press. That led City's mild-mannered manager to angrily confront Eriksson on the pitch after their 2-0 defeat in 2014, and he had not calmed down by the time he spoke to reporters.

"It was just to tell him he decided the game. I was not happy because he decided the