Pep Guardiola Urges Patience As New-Look Manchester City Fall Short Again

Last Updated:March 18, 2026, 10:10 IST

Pep Guardiola requests Manchester City to be more clinical after a 2-1 defeat to Real Madrid. City now focuses on the FA Cup, League Cup and Premier League.

Manchester City head coach Pep Guardiola has said that his team needs to be more clinical in certain areas to ensure that it can compete with the top teams across the world, adding that, with the Champions League lost, his team would focus on the FA Cup, League Cup and the Premier League.

Vinicius Junior’s double inflicted a 2-1 loss on 10-man City on Tuesday, who lost skipper Bernardo Silva to a red card after just 20 minutes at the Etihad Stadium.

Most of the damage was already done in the first leg at the Santiago Bernabeu thanks to Federico Valverde’s hat-trick.

Guardiola rued losing the opportunity to test the 15-time champions after Silva’s red card for handball, though the tie was far tighter than last season’s 6-3 aggregate loss.

City have undergone a major rebuild across the last three transfer windows, with Silva among the few remaining core footballers from the team that won four successive Premier League titles under Guardiola between 2021 and 2024.

Guardiola’s team face Arsenal in the League Cup final on March 22 but trail them by nine points in the Premier League and meet Liverpool in next month’s FA Cup quarter-finals.

“Still, we aren’t complete. Still there are things in certain moments (where) we need to be more clinical, but my feeling is it will be a question of time. We aren’t a complete team; that is a reality," Guardiola said.

“I have been in a team at Manchester City where we were a team in all aspects. Still, we aren’t, but we have a final on Sunday, the FA Cup against Liverpool and the Premier League is still tight," Guardiola added.

Guardiola guided City to Champions League glory in 2022/23, but just one European title in a decade remains the only slight blemish on his record in Manchester.

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