PEP PLOTS PERFECT STORM

We can turn this tie around

PEP GUARDIOLA warned Manchester City need a perfect performance to pull off one of the great Champions League comebacks.

City must overcome a 3-0 deficit against Liverpool in tonight’s quarter-final second leg at the Etihad. And City boss Guardiola said: “Of course to go through we have to make almost the perfect game – create chances, be clinical, defend well and concede few chances. “All the conditions have to be perfect. Getting the result is tough but we have 90 minutes to do it and in football, like all sports, everything can happen. “What we are going to do is try. We have to score the first one, make the second one and then we’ll see the momentum. That can happen in the Champions League.” Only two teams have managed to overturn a deficit of three goals or more in the second leg since the European Cup

was changed to the Champions League in 1994.

Barcelona turned around a 4-0 defeat at Paris St-Germain last season to win 6-1 at home, while Deportivo La Coruna came from 4-1 down to AC Milan in 2004.

City would enter European Cup folklore if they pull it off.

Guardiola believes they need to start winning the Champions League to match the likes of Barcelona as one of the world’s

top teams. The Spanish coach said: “It would be historic if we win, I think they know it. “We need titles in Europe. It’s so complicated but you need nights that make the people understand it. “It will happen sooner or later but what this club has done in the last 10 years, in terms of creating amazing facilities and making it bigger, sooner or later it will happen. “For the big clubs you need a lot of time but hopefully we can do it. Maybe next year or maybe the next one but it will happen.” Days after being blitzed at Anfield, champions-elect City blew the chance to clinch the Premier League title by losing 3-2 against Manchester United on Saturday. Their hopes of a quadruple evaporated for the Carabao Cup winners when League One Wigan dumped them out of the FA Cup in February. Guardiola added: “My team is extraordinary, not comparable to many others, it’s exceptional. “I will be close to them no matter what happens between now and the end of the season. “It’s a joy to be manager of them, even three days ago, with the way we played.”