Pep Guardiola saw his side score six and concede six across two legs of the Champions League last 16 but blamed his high-scoring attack, not his high-conceding defence, for failurePep Guardiola was hired to win the Champions League for Manchester City and on Wednesday night they crashed out in the last 16 at the hands of Monaco. This is the unpalatable truth Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the chairman, and the chief executive-sporting director axis of Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain have to digest with year one of their Get Guardiola master plan in tatters.If the Catalan was not required to win the competition in his first season the absolute minimum was to elevate style and offer clear evidence City are only fractions...
The Foxes see off Sevilla to progress to the Champions League quarter-finals but Manchester City come unstuck. Plus: Aitor Karanka is sacked by Middlesbrough, and what happened when AFC Wimbledon hosted MK DonsSubscribe and review: iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast & Stitcher. And join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterOn today’s Football Weekly Extra, AC Jimbo is joined by James Horncastle, Jacob Steinberg and Simon Burnton to look back on the conclusion of an extraordinary round of 16 in the Champions League. Manchester City, despite a two-goal advantage from the first leg, managed to mess things up in Monaco. We hear from Julien Laurens about the goaltastic Monégasques – and wonder what it says about the Best League in the...
Gruelling festive fixture lists may not be good preparation for playing Champions League football in February but Tottenham were already out by ChristmasEnglish football may be about to plunge into one of its regular periods of introspection now that Leicester City are left as the only standard-bearers for the Premier League in the Champions League quarter-finals, though the rest of Europe will not find anything too surprising in this week’s developments. Related: Monaco’s Tiemoué Bakayoko condemns Manchester City to away-goal defeat Related: Arsène Wenger has been living on borrowed time at Arsenal for too long | Richard Williams Continue reading...
The frustrated manager faces a grilling after his cast of stars sleepwalk out of the Champions League at the hands of MonacoAttack is only the best form of defence if a side attack. This truism haunted the ultimate shock‑and‑awe manager, Pep Guardiola, as Manchester City sleepwalked out of the Champions League.Listless, confidence-shot, just not good enough: the list to describe City until they finally seemed to wake up before Leroy Sané’s 71st-minute goal is not pretty reading for them. Related: Monaco’s Tiemoué Bakayoko condemns Manchester City to away-goal defeat Related: Monaco 3-1 Manchester City (agg 6-6): Champions League last 16, second leg – as it happened Continue reading...
The Leicester goalkeeper’s penalty save from Steven Nzonzi was a high point in a career that has meandered to the top and suggested he is among the world’s bestThere was something a little eerie about Kasper Schmeichel’s penalty save towards the end of Leicester City’s uproarious Champions League defeat of Sevilla. Mainly it was the element of real-time deja vu about the whole thing. Not just because Schmeichel had also kept out a penalty from Joaquín Correa in Seville. This was a save that seemed oddly inevitable from the moment the kick was awarded, to be already happening even as Steven Nzonzi frowned and placed the ball on the spot, Schmeichel bobbing on his toes and doing that funny little...