Guardiola hails City’s progress despite Leipzig defeat

Kyle Walker was shown a late red card as Manchester City suffered a shock 2-1 defeat at RB Leipzig on Tuesday, but City still advanced to the Champions League’s last 16 as group winners.

Walker was dismissed seven minutes from time for kicking Leipzig striker Andre Silva, who had earlier doubled the hosts’ tally after Dominik Szoboszlai gave Leipzig a first-half lead.

“We showed today that with courage and will we can beat everyone,” Szoboszlai said.

Before Walker’s dismissal, City had pulled a goal back when Riyad Mahrez finally headed past Leipzig goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi, who had previously pulled off a string of saves.

Walker will now be banned for the first leg of the last 16 tie.

“Right now, we don’t know exactly what went wrong — we’ll have to sit down and analyse this,” said City left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko.

“That we had won the group before the game had nothing really to do with our performance.”

Despite PSG’s 4-1 win against Club Brugge, City will go into Monday’s draw as Group A winners while third-placed Leipzig head into the knock-out stages of the Europa League.

After the final whistle, City coach Guardiola could not hide his irritation on the sidelines at the near-deserted Red Bull Arena as the game was played behind closed doors due to high numbers of Covid-19 cases in Saxony.

“We had already qualified with one game left from a tough group so I am more than satisfied with the performance in every single (European) game,” Guardiola said.

“We struggled in the first half today, but generally we have played well in the group stages.”

Leipzig rallied in their first game since American coach Jesse Marsch was sacked after inconsistent results. His assistant Achim Beierlorzer was on the home bench.

“That was the reaction we had wanted - and expected - to see,” said Leipzig chief executive Oliver Mintzlaff, who fired Marsch on Sunday.