Manchester City vs Barcelona: Pep Guardiola all too aware of the size of the Champions League task he's facing

Manager admits his side are well short of the machine that is Barcelona

Pep Guardiola looks perplexed ahead of City v Barcelona (Getty)

Pep Guardiola winked and offered a fleeting smile to one of the Spanish contingent when, at the end of his press conference, he had flat-batted the question of whether it would be difficult to face the team he had “said publicly” he supported. “No. No,” he’d said to that idea. The look on his face suggested otherwise.

It’s not the man’s emotional investment in the Catalan side which will be the problem on Tuesday night, but the size of the football task. One of the points Guardiola was keen to stress on Monday was the often forgotten significance of which team might “provoke mistakes” in the other at the Etihad, when his present and former clubs meet. Manchester City’s lack of a first choice goalkeeper and a recognised right-back make the prospect of Barcelona doing the provoking all the greater.

This scenario would not have formed part of Guardiola’s mental landscape of being City manager before he arrived this summer but it is what it is. Heavy defeat in the Camp Nou was disappointing. Something similar at the Etihad would be embarrassing, telegraphing to the world that Guardiola certainly doesn’t walk on water and that the City challenge is his biggest yet.

The 45-year-old could not have done more to embed himself in that challenge. While Jose Mourinho’s semi-detached Manchester existence includes residence in the five-star Lowry Hotel, with a chauffeur-driven shuttle back to London at the first available opportunity, Guardiola has already purchased his own city centre apartment and even his choice of golf course is genuinely local. He has been playing in the east Manchester district of Audenshaw, near the Etihad, which many of the wealthy football elite would not touch with a bargepole.

Pep Guardiola oversees City training ahead of the Barcelona match (Getty)

But embedding a style of football is a different proposition entirely. City’s first choice defence is unequal to the attacking triumvirate Luis Enrique’s side will bring, let alone that makeshift one he will be pulling together. And then there is the bold decision he has taken to tackle what he sees as a Sergio Aguero problem immediately, rather than build a foundation and broach such a thorny subject later.

Few predicted Guardiola’s perception of Aguero as a player in need of improvement, though he did not desist from tackling that subject once again on Monday.

He was asked whether the centre forward Barcelona are bringing to Manchester on Tuesday night has “what you want from Sergio” prompting an answer which will not make edifying reading for the Argentine. “What I want from Aguero is to achieve his huge qualities as much as possible,” he said. “I can’t ask from Sergio what Luis Suarez does - I can’t. It would be unfair. I know the qualities of the players and I have to develop his [Aguero’s] quality and mentality. That’s what I want…”

It should be said that the 4-0 scoreline in Catalonia two weeks ago obscured the fact that City played well for nearly an hour, before Claudio Bravo was dismissed and the 10-man side perished. Guardiola agreed that the team could take consolation from this, though he did not make too much of the consolation. “Yeah, we would like to play many things like we did in the first hour but every game is different,” he said. “I would like to play in a good level as much as possible – 90 minutes would be perfect but what happened in Barcelona isn’t the reason [for] what will happen tomorrow.”

The overall impression on Monday was of a manager who feels there is a chasm between tonight’s opponents and his own side. “In three months it is impossible to get to the level,” he said. “Not [just] here but anywhere in the world. I would love to be closer but we need time. I’ve never thought we can’t win a football match. I’ve never entered a match thinking ‘We can’t win.’ They are a difficult opponent and we will need to play perfectly. But if not, we will congratulate them and concentrate on Glasgow and Dortmund.”

The technical faculty he is looking for in his team might not be what he wants but he will expect effort, he said. “I would like them to show courage and put everything into the game. Just a willingness to play well - that’s all we can ask of our players. Everyone can have their own opinions about who should play but without a willingness there [is nothing you can do.]. I can only ask [for that].”

We have already seen this manager’s capacity to engender such a ‘willingness.’ Regardless of the result in Spain and the last month’s struggle to win Premier League games, this City team of his seems reborn from the outfit which looked so out of spirit and belief in Europe during the Manuel Pellegrini years. The win over Borussia Monchengladbach in their other home tie of Group C was a compelling exhibition of players driven to something better by the new manager.


 Guardiola has stressed he needs more time to build City into his team 
 (Getty)

Within the realm of expectations for Guardiola tonight is a result which can break the repetitive cycle against Barcelona in which City lose a player to a red card – Claudio Bravo two weeks ago, Gael Clichy in 2015, Martin Demichelis and Pablo Zabaleta in 2014 – and then lose the game.

Guardiola offered no great claim on the tactical method he has in mind. “Yeah I have an idea how we are going to play. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. But I have an idea, yeah.” He was asked if he would enjoy some "revenge" for what befell his side in Spain, though for both emotional and footballing reasons that was the last thing on his mind. “No,” he replied.