By Reuters
Manager Pep Guardiola said Manchester City’s times of greatness are gone as the Premier League holders crashed out of the Champions League on Wednesday with a humbling 6-3 aggregate defeat to Real Madrid in the knockouts.
Kylian Mbappe’s hat-trick put the holders in the last 16 and left Guardiola’s team licking more wounds in a terrible season by their standards when they are also 17 points off the top of the Premier League in fourth place.
“We have been extraordinarily extraordinary in the past, but not any more,” Guardiola told a press conference on Wednesday.
“We will have time to think about (rebuilding). It’s easy to jump to conclusions like that now,” he added after the 3-1 defeat in Madrid added to a 3-2 home loss in the first leg.
“The defeat at home was hard to swallow and this one is even harder. But Real Madrid are very good and we know it. In time, we will all accept things as they are.
“But now we still have 14 games to go until the end of the season and we’ll face it as we should. Let’s think about the Premier League and the FA Cup. We will try to be in this competition again next season.”
HAALAND MISSED
Guardiola said his side missed striker Erling Haaland, who suffered a knee injury at the weekend.
“Erling tried to practice yesterday, but he was really hurting from the challenge against Newcastle. It hurt when he walked, when trying to go up and down stairs,” Guardiola said.
“This morning he told me he wasn’t ready, that he wasn’t feeling well. The plan was to try, to try to get a better result than in Manchester and, in his condition, it wasn’t the best option.”
The City boss was generous about his conquerors.
“We weren’t able to stop Mbappe and the better team won. Madrid deserved it. We’ve done quite well in previous seasons, but this year we’re not getting off to a good start. We have to learn,” he said.
“Physique matters a lot at the Bernabeu and they, on top of that, have improved, because now they run more. They press high and are very dynamic. Nothing else to say, they deserved it. Accept it and that’s it.”
