Pep Guardiola said Manchester City have one “last chance” to salvage their Champions League campaign after a 4-2 defeat at Paris Saint-Germain left the 2023 European champions facing a humiliating early exit from the competition.
Despite taking a 2-0 lead early in the second half with goals from Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland, City surrendered their advantage and ended up losing convincingly at the Parc des Princes.
The loss means that City must now beat Club Brugge at the Etihad next Wednesday to reach the playoff round. Anything other than a victory will see City eliminated.
But after seeing his team outplayed by PSG, Guardiola had no complaints about the result or City’s fate.
“We have a last chance against Brugge and if we don’t go through it’s because we don’t deserve it,” Guardiola told reporters. “We have to recover against Chelsea in our next game and just move forward.
“Tonight, they [PSG] were better. Congratulate PSG and accept it. The law of football is like that — how intense and aggressive they were in key positions. You have to recover players and do it better.
“Their players suffered and they were better. They were better in the duels and we found our moment with 0-2 for the goal, but the first half they had two clear chances.”
City surrendered a winning position for the ninth time this season and the defeat was their third successive away loss in the Champions League having previously gone 12 games on the road without a loss in the competition.
And Guardiola said he felt City’s defeat was due to being unable to dominate the game in midfield against PSG’s energetic unit.
“When they had the ball, they dropped, but we created problems,” Guardiola said. “After 2-0 and especially 1-2 we could not play. You have to play with the ball and they were better.
“They had an extra man in the middle with the false nine and it was difficult. They were better. They had one more player in the middle and we expected with the buildup and to have more aggression. but they jumped back and squeezed really well and we could not make the process. The connection with Bernardo [Silva] and Kova [Mateo Kovacic] was not possible or not good and we could not make the process.”
Guardiola said Manchester City could not “cope with” PSG in the transition game.
“We had to defend with the ball and it’s impossible to play well,” he said. “PSG played better in their games and couldn’t win. Today they were able to. In the big stages, the big teams, we struggle. We have to accept it. Recover and go to Chelsea. We have to recover our game.”
