“We should enjoy not being among the favourites,” says City’s manager
Pep Guardiola has said Manchester City should enjoy their position as a dark horse in this season’s Champions League.
City, treble winners in 2023, have drastically dropped form under Guardiola over the past year. Last season, they crashed out of Europe in the first knockout round, albeit against Real Madrid, and they had a poor domestic run of form that saw them needing to secure Champions League qualification on the final day of the Premier League season.
They open their European campaign this season against Napoli at the Etihad on Thursday. Liverpool, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal and Real Madrid are all ranked by bookmakers ahead of Guardiola’s side in the race for the trophy.
“Apparently we are not [one of the favourites],” said Guardiola. “We should enjoy the moment, the journey, we are happy to be here.
“In the past we have been [among the favourites]. We have won just once. It shows the difficulty of the competition. We should just focus on tomorrow, the game we have to play.”
City started the season winning one game and then losing two, before returning to winning ways with a 3-0 thrashing of local rivals Manchester United.
