Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Premier League our focus — Pep
PEP Guardiola immediately turned his thoughts to the Premier League after David S i l v a ’s g o a l s e n t h i s Manchester City side into the Champions League last 16.
Silva struck the 45th-minute equaliser as City claimed a hard-fought 1-1 draw at Borussia Monchengladbach to secure second place i n Group C and progress to the knockout stages with a game to spare.
City were some way short of the standard that saw them t opple Barcelona earlier this month and the match was a stop-start affair with both sides having a man sent off.
But boss Guardiola was pleased enough to get the job done and hopes the qualification can help domestic form.
H e s a i d : “We h av e qualified with one game left and it’s a big compliment for the team, for the whole stage. In general we made a good performance.
“We have qualification in the pocket until February, so now we can focus finally on one competition, the Premier League, and we can be so satisfied.”
With Barcelona beating Celtic i n Glasgow, City cannot finish top of the group. The other positions are also finalised with Monchengladbach going through t o t he Europa League as the third-placed team and Celtic ending in last place.
That renders City’s final group game against the Scottish champions next month a dead rubber.
Guardiola said: “Of course we are going to prioritise our games in the Premier League now.
“The most difficult part of our job is to leave players out of the squad, because they deserve to play. Of course we are going to play players that normally don’t play in the last game.
“But a lot of things can happen. We have to play Burnley and Chelsea, and after that we are going to focus on Celtic.”