CHAMPIONS LEAGUE? YOU’RE HAVING A LAUGH NOT my priority

Pep: Europe’s biggest competition is

PEP GUARDIOLA claims his unfulfilled quest to bring the Champions League trophy to Manchester is not the reason he stays on at the Etihad.

And he insists that while pundits and fans alike focus on City’s annual bid to break their duck and win Europe’s big prize, it isn’t HIS obsession.

Guardiola is in the final year of his contract but he revealed he’s under no pressure from the club’s Abu Dhabi owners to finally take home the biggest prize in European football.

The Spaniard and his serial winners start their challenge to bank a fifth Premier League title in six seasons at West Ham today, after a summer reshuffle that has seen some big names leave and some arrive. said: “No. [With that reasoning] if I’d won the Champions League two years ago what sense should I be here now? So if we won, I’d have to leave?

“My life doesn’t depend on that. I’d like to do it, everyone tries to do it, but it’s not an obsession, it’s a dream or target. I’m aware how strong the opponents are and how the competition is so difficult.

“People might say it’s an excuse, but I’m not here to win the Champions League. The owners didn’t ask me.

“Of course they want it and I am the first to want it. But it was the same with Bayern Munich, and before with

Barcelona, where I won it twice – every year I want us to win all four titles we can. If I am a manager in 30 or 40 years I will want to win the Champions League every season.

“But I didn’t feel a failure the two years at Barcelona we didn’t win, or the three with Bayern we didn’t win.

Master

“We want to win it, but at the same time I’m not the master of the universe. I don’t feel like that.

“We try to do it, we were closer last season, and we will try again this season because we qualified again.

We try again. All the clubs right now start the season with a main target to qualify for the Champions League, more than winning the Premier League.

“For the stability of the club, for the prestige of the club, many things. I wouldn’t just leave in 11 months if we don’t win the Champions League this season.

“I’d be the happiest man on the planet if we did win it. But that is not the reason I stay or go.”

After six years at the Etihad, Guardiola has already been at City longer than any of his previous stints as a manager. And he claims the unique situation at City, where he is working with former Barca big-wigs – director of football Txiki Begiristain and CEO Ferran Soriano – makes for the best conditions he’s ever found.

“I’m still here because we won things,” added Guardiola. “I am with good professionals, also my friends.

“But my friends are not stupid – it’s a business, they need results.

“I’m here because we won together. This is why I stay here.

Fluid

“Most of the time I’m here in these facilities,working lots of hours, and after that I go home.

“I like my life and I like my job, and I do it with people I like.

“I’m happy with the staff, the backroom staff, and after six years we know each other quite well.

“We don’t make rules, everything is fluid. We know each other, not just the players. I can be happy with players, with the backroom staff and the hierarchy.

“If there was trouble I wouldn’t have been here all these years.

“I am pretty sure I’m happy here and if at the end I don’t stay, that’s not because I want to move to another place.

“If I stop, it will be because I want to take a break. These are my thoughts right now.”