Pep Guardiola says he is ‘not thinking about’ failing to reach the knockout stage of the Champions League as he prepares for a must-win game against Club Brugge.
The 2023 champions have had a poor first campaign in the new-look format and go into Wednesday’s final day in 25th place.
The teams from ninth to 24th go into a play-off round so defeat against the Belgian side would mean an end to their European season.
Statisticians Opta give City a 63.8% chance of qualifying – while Brugge are 93.9% likely to progress.
PEP 💬 (On John Stones) He played 35 minutes [against Chelsea] and played really well. We will see today how he feels. pic.twitter.com/Z0v7FF2heD
— Manchester City (@ManCity) January 28, 2025
Guardiola said: “The situation we have, we have to win the game and if not then we won’t continue in competition and we want to go through to have another chance to play another two games and qualify for the next stage.
“It’s not a problem it’s an opportunity, a challenge and we will face it.
“For the club it would not be good to not qualify but I’m not thinking about that right now. I know for all the people concerned whether we will qualify or not, I’m thinking we’re going to do it.”
City have been big spenders in the January market, spending around £125m on Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis, but Guardiola says he does not know how failing to progress in Europe would affect the club financially.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t speak with the CEO about that.
“In the last two or three transfer windows it’s always been positive. I’m not naïve enough to not know how important it is financially for the club to go through in this competition – it can affect the club but of course we want to try to make it happen and go through first for sport reasons.
“In the last five or six years the net spend at this club has been amazing. The club said OK ,the situation is the situation, if we want to spend we can spend and if not we don’t spend.”
