Pep Guardiola says Man City Champions League finalists were branded 'failures'

Pep Guardiola says Manchester City were almost perfect in the Champions League last season and was stung by them being branded a failure.

The Blues boss was less than happy with aspects of his team’s play as they effectively secured a quarter-final place by winning their last 16 first leg 5-0 at Sporting Lisbon last night.

But the fact that his side kept a clean sheet - their first of this season’s tournament - was one big boost.

Last season City conceded just once in their first eight games, and reached the final by letting in just four in 12 games before losing to the only goal of the game against Chelsea.

Guardiola expressed concerns that if his team do not sharpen up in various aspects, that they could come a cropper in the quarter-final.

And he compared their controlled run to the final last season favourably with the more haphazard course they have plotted this year.

“In the quarter-finals, if we go to the next round, it will be in a month and I don't know what will happen,” he said.

“We almost made a perfect Champions League last season. We played 13 or 14 games, we won 11, and drew one - when we were already qualified against Porto.

“We lost the final and it was like 'What a f****** failure this team is' - and it was not true. We made a perfect Champions League but in the final we didn't perform as we normally do.

“That's why, against a top side, a world champion - I congratulate them publicly for the first time to be Club World Cup champions - and the margin of the Champions League is in this detail.

“I am not going to hide behind the 0-5. We made in general very good things but we didn't read the spaces to attack them in the way they move. The space was there and it didn't really work.”

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