Pep Guardiola believes Arsenal remain the most effective team within the Champions League and claims Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool has been the ‘biggest challenge’ of his profession.
Manchester City crashed out of the Champions League on Tuesday night as they were beaten 2-1 at home by Real Madrid, who also secured a 3-0 win on the Santiago Bernabeu last week.
Guardiola’s side now have the prospect to win their first trophy of the season this weekend as they play Arsenal within the Carabao Cup final at Wembley.
And following his side’s Champions League exit, Guardiola believes Arsenal head into Sunday’s Carabao Cup final because the favourites.
‘We’ll challenge against the most effective team in England, to date, the most effective team in Europe, have a look at the leads to the group stage, they’ve been the primary, they’ve perhaps lost three or 4 games this season,’ Guardiola said after City’s defeat to Real Madrid.
‘It’s the most effective, challenge them how we’re, compete with them, we’ll need to see, after one or two weeks we play them within the Premier League and see. Football is that.
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‘Sometimes they’re higher so it’s a great mirror to see what we have now to do beat them. It’s only a game, we’ll prepare, attempt to compete and see who we’re.
‘Ultimately the outcomes haven’t been good, except against Newcastle [in the FA Cup], but I’ve had the sensation we’re a unprecedented team, we have now many, many good things that I like to look at but we’re still not complete, we will not be aware in certain moments and departments that we have now to be more clinical and still we will not be.
Champions League quarter-final draw
Paris Saint-Germain vs Galatasaray or Liverpool
Real Madrid vs Atalanta or Bayern Munich
Newcastle United or Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid or Tottenham
Sporting CP vs Arsenal
‘My feeling is that it’s a matter of time, that happened once I arrived here in my first season, it needs a little bit of time.’
Guardiola also dismissed the suggestion that beating Madrid within the Champions League has been the largest challenge of his profession.
‘No, Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool was my biggest challenge,’ Guardiola said.
‘You almost don’t realise what it was prefer to face Liverpool. Those games were an incredible learning experience for the team, because to play a team like us who had not been within the competition 12 or 13 years ago, and the generation we had, that they had won those games sometimes, Real Madrid have beaten us, we’ve won some, we’ve had great times as well, but I believe the teams we’ve played against also know they’ve played us too.’
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