PSG meltdown justifies two Pep Guardiola tactics in Man City's Champions League campaign

Another year, another spectacular meltdown for Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. Having been pushed hard by them in the knockouts last year and the groups this season, Manchester City can breathe a sigh of relief that they do not have to face them again.

Granted, Real Madrid are hardly a gimme but Pep Guardiola can take particular satisfaction from his side's serene progress to the quarter-finals while PSG crashed and burned. After all, it could easily have been City in the Bernabeu this week.

It is to the detriment of PSG that it was them and not City playing Real Madrid. On head-to-head results in the league, it was the French team that had the advantage.

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The fact that they didn't top the group, then, is because they didn't turn up for every game while City did. Dropped points away to Club Brugge and RB Leipzig allowed the Blues to claim top spot - and an easier last-16 draw - even with defeat in their final group stage game.

Guardiola's strategy of playing a strong team in every game can frustrate and, in the case of playing Ruben Dias in the FA Cup at Peterborough recently, hurt the team in other competitions. There will have been many an eye rolled on Wednesday night upon reading his programme notes about how their tie with Sporting was very much alive despite being 5-0 up against an obviously inferior team.

Yet that mentality has enabled City to hoover up trophies under the manager in a way that the other outstanding English team of this era hasn't, and the Blues have more chance of winning the Champions League this season as a result. PSG can beat anyone on their day, but they don't have enough of those kinds of