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Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan scored as City sidestepped Gladbach, but can they make it to the Champions League quarter-finals?
Pep Guardiola doesn’t think scars from previous Champions League failures are a problem for his Manchester City side after they sealed a return to the quarter-finals.
Magnificent first-half goals from Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne gave the Premier League leaders a 2-0 victory over Borussia Monchengladbach in Budapest. closing out a complete 4-0 aggregate victory.
City desperate to overcome the quarterfinal hoodoo
It means City are back in the stage of the competition where they retired in each of the last three seasons. but Guardiola does not feel that those defeats against Liverpool, Tottenham and Lyon will play in the minds of his players.
“In the previous seasons I did not see a team that did not want to step forward. Every time we want to pass,” he told BT Sport.
“The eight best teams in Europe, each time the quality is higher and it is more difficult.
“Hopefully the team can maintain this state of mind and we can compete, and above all play good games.
“When you pass, I always think it’s because you deserve it. You have to play good games.
“What happened in the past is past. In the quarterfinals, a bad game, bad moments, bad minutes can punish you.”
An improved defense means City seem like a much more stable side than the one that took off in those harum-scarum quarter-final affairs.
They became the third team in Champions League history to keep seven consecutive clean sheets after AC Milan and Arsenal, with Porto’s Luis Díaz was the last player to break with Guardiola’s men on the first match of this season.
“We conceded just one goal against Porto, that’s pretty impressive,” Guardiola said.
“We cannot deny that Ruben [Dias] and john [Stones] He took an incredible step forward for the team. But ayme [Aymeric Laporte] he’s back again and especially kyle [Walker] he is back in his prime.
“We need this, but everyone runs a lot, not just the people behind: the strikers and the people in the middle.”
“The most important thing is to understand that we defend with the ball “.
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An influential element in that stability, both in and out of possession, has been the deployment of Guardiola’s Joao Cancelo as a hybrid midfielder / winger.
As in the first game against Gladbach, the Portugal international excelled by entering from the left side, a tactic Guardiola was inspired by. Invented by the Bundesliga teams he faced while in charge of Bayern Munich.
“It comes from Germany. When you lose the ball they kill you on the counterattack when the wings are wider,” he added.
“In Barcelona we had more control in the game with the incredible players that we had. In Germany it was completely different.
“The main reason is to have four, five, six players in the middle to make short passes and be in control, that’s why.
“And a lot of good quality players who don’t lose the ball. Three left feet with Phil [Foden], Riyad [Mahrez] and Bernardo [Silva]It helped us a lot to give us the continuity of the pass and the extra pass ”.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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