'Forget about Man City winning treble' — Guardiola

PREMIER LEAGUE 'Forget about Man City winning treble' — Guardiola

Ifeanyi Ufomadu 14:21 - 01.03.2023

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has dismissed suggestions that the club could win a treble this season, after a 3-0 win over Championship side Bristol City in the FA Cup.

Manchester City ran out 3-0 winners over Bristol on Tuesday night to book a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals thanks to a brace from Phil Foden and a sumptuous finish from Kevin de Bruyne.

Pep believes treble talk is a distraction

The comfortable victory keeps City on course for success in three competitions, the Premier League, Champions League, and FA Cup.

Man City boss Pep Guardiola

However, Pep Guardiola, who is no stranger to trebles, having guided Barcelona to a clean sweep of trophies in 2009 has poured cold water on the treble talk for now.

"No, forget about it [treble]," Guardiola said.

 "Forget it. When you start to talk about that, you start to lose competitions and drop competitions.

"We are not ready. Not even one second to think about that, we just think about [next game against] Newcastle.

 "The only thing I said many times, I'm so annoyed to say it again and again and again and again after what happened in the last years, we are still right now, one more year being there two, three months away to finish the season, we are still in three competitions. 

"That is the biggest credit. This is the biggest title. The biggest one. I know we cannot drop points in the Premier League because we have on top of us a team [Arsenal] and [Manchester] United is coming from behind. 

"For the Champions League, we see what happens in two weeks. What is important is we are there, but of course, we are going to continue as long as possible."

Big picture for Man City

Man City are currently just two points behind League leaders Arsenal, having played a game more, and are tied 1-1 going into the second leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie with RB Leipzig at the Etihad Stadium in two weeks.

var widgetLoaderConfig = widgetLoaderConfig || { CDN_URL: 'https://widgets.sportal365.com', APP_LINK: 'desktop', API_URL: 'https://africa.football.api.sportal365.com/', API_KEY: '2f852b4de2f3a5cf3188e74b33087bb4:2c18422f8e826a7d11aeed52edb2449e', LANG: 'en', REQUEST_INTERVAL: 30, ENABLE_BET_SLIP: false, AUTHOR: false, THEME: "light", TOURNAMENT_ORDER: "pulse_nigeria", LINK_OPTIONS_V2: { 'player' : { 'url': '/football/player/{playerId}' }, 'team' : { 'url': '/football/{teamId}' }, 'tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}' }, 'match': { 'url' : '/football/match/{matchId}', 'sort': { 'criteria': 'alphabetically', 'direction': 'asc' } }, 'configuration': { 'newWindow': false }, 'standings_tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}/standings' } } }; if (!document.querySelector('script[src="https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js"]')) { window.setTimeout(function () { let scriptCss = document.createElement('link'); scriptCss.href = 'https://www.pulsesports.co.ke/css/sport-widgets.css?v=1668785443'; scriptCss.rel = 'stylesheet'; scriptCss.type = 'text/css'; document.body.appendChild(scriptCss); let scriptTag = document.createElement('script'); scriptTag.src = 'https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js'; scriptTag.defer = true; scriptTag.onload = function () { window.setTimeout(function () { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }, 200); }; document.head.appendChild(scriptTag); }, 0); } else { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }

Guardiola will be delighted to see Phil Foden returning to the form he showed at the start of the season. The England international scored twice against Bristol and was lively on both wings. 

Erling Haaland has struggled recently by his standards but Foden's return to form could help ease some of the pressure on Haaland's shoulders as City head into crunch time this season.

Related content