CITY SPECIAL Allegri plays down City’s Euro threat
JUVENTUS boss Max Allegri has disregarded City as a threat to his team’s Champions League chances.
After knocking out Tottenham with a 2-1 comeback win at Wembley, the Italian coach said Barcelona was the only team he wanted to avoid in the quarter-final draw a week today.
And he went on to name Real Madrid and Bayern Munich as other dangers as he plots a course to the final – but failed to mention bookies’ favourites City.
“The only team I don’t want are Barcelona because, every year, Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona. Now stop!,” he said.
“People talk about Real Madrid and Barcelona, who are perhaps up there with the favourites, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be able to compete. Bayern Munich are another team that can do some damage further down the line.”
City made the last eight in unsatisfactory fashion, losing 2-1 at home to Basel with a weakened team on Wednesday night, and Guardiola feels that may have given some the wrong impression.
“Maybe people will think the way we played, we are not able to fight to go through,” he said.
“We will see, I understand. After we see the second half, people say that this team does not deserve to fight for everything - but we are going to forget.
“This is the second time we have reached the quarter-finals in our history, and that is good news.
“We will see how we arrive in the quarter-finals.” PEP Guardiola dismissed concerns about the strength of his squad - despite criticising his much-changed City side after their Champions League defeat to Basel.
The runaway Premier League leaders lost at home for the first time since 2016 - but still progressed to the quarter-finals 5-2 on aggregate.
Guardiola was adamant City’s 4-0 first leg lead was to blame for a lack-lustre performance in their 2-1 defeat on Wednesday night.
But former City player Richard Dunne raised concerns about the club’s chances of success in Europe - particularly if they wrap up the title in the coming weeks.
“For me it’s a bit of a warning,” Dunne told BT Sport. “If City go on and win the league in the next couple of weeks, if they take their foot off the pedal it’s difficult to go again.
“When the Champions League comes around you’ve got to be at 100 per cent or you just drop a little bit and you see what happened to them against Basel.
“Players who played had something to prove, they should have been up for it.
“There should have been more intensity in the game, but it was just sloppy at times in defence, the way they passed the ball out, they gave it away too easy.
“For City to go on and win the Champions League it’s going to need the whole squad on top form, so their confidence will have taken a knock.
“He’ll want them in training every day being sharp, being intense pushing the other lads.
“Against Basel, they didn’t put any pressure on the other players in the team, their positions seem safe. You imagine the back two and a couple of others will always be second-choice now for the remainder of the season.”
Guardiola described City’s second-half performance as ‘really poor’ - but believed there were mitigating circumstances for their fourth defeat of the season.
He said: “You will find in all the clubs in the world when you make six changes the team is not the same.
“When you are a stable team, and normally you have more minutes, you have one or two changes per match - after that the team is stable.
“We knew we would have that in that way, that’s why I insisted we start in that way (intensely).
“Our rhythm was good, but in the second half we just passed the ball to pass the ball.
“That is why everything was slow, everything was without rhythm.
“To just pass for itself is nothing and the second half was really, really poor.”
City’s latest result was just the ninth time they had failed to win from 46 games in all competitions this season and it highlighted an emerging pattern for Guardiola’s side.
On each of those occasions they have been without key players.