Guardiola’s Pep talk to his players

PEP Guardiola says his players should not “forget” the painful feeling of losing to Real Madrid in devastating fashion on Wednesday night.

Their Champions League exit at the Bernabeu means Guardiola and moneybags City have still not lifted the European Cup since their own Middle East takeover in 2008.

Newcastle now face the wounded animal at the Etihad Stadium tomorrow and Guardiola has told his players to retain any of their feelings of disappointment and use it as motivation against the Magpies.

City need three points to keep their title challenge on track but Guardiola will not want to let another trophy slip away after missing out on the Champions League for another year.

He said: “Why forget it? We are going to go into the game against Newcastle thinking about that.

“I know what the players are like in training and in the meeting rooms.

“They are committed, they want to do it and I don’t have any doubt about that.

“For 90 minutes in Madrid they were at 0-1 and through.

“Real Madrid, for many years, just have this belief from the past and the incredible players who were there, Puskas, Raul, Cristiano Ronaldo...

“Rogrygo feels like he has to do it because they done it and it is part of that.

“Fighting is part of the tactics and we handled it as much as possible, could we have played better? Yeah. Could we do more? Yeah.

“However, it is not that easy, first because there is momentum and tension but also because we are playing Real Madrid.”

He added: “We have to prove it all again next year, Barcelona and Bayern Munich will be there again too.

“Lifting trophies is nice but it is one more season and one more name on the list of winners.

“There are winners and losers but it is one more list.”