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Cape Town — Pep Guardiola remains unconvinced that his Manchester City side has what it takes to go all the way in this season’s Champions League.
The Premier League champions were knocked out by Liverpool in the quarter-finals of last season’s competition and have already lost to Lyon this time around.

Guardiola’s side responded by beating Hoffenheim, but ahead of yesterday’s clash with Shakhtar Donetsk, the City head coach admitted that his side was lacking in certain areas.

He told Sky Sports: “In this competition you need something special, and still I don’t feel it. I saw last season we are still not ready to win it. That’s what I feel.

“That doesn’t mean we are not going to try but to win this competition it’s not enough just to have desire, or wanting to win. You have to have many circumstances, have experience and still we don’t have enough in some moments.”

Guardiola is well aware of what it takes to be successful in Europe, having guided Barcelona to two Champions League titles. He also reached three semi-finals with Bayern Munich.

In a bid to motivate the club’s supporters, he added: “That’s not enough that the manager wants to win it, it’s not just the players. You have to have the desire — the club, chairman, owner, the fans, everyone has to push to be closer, to achieve the next stages. When it happens, everyone will feel it.

“It’s one important thing to win this kind of title, you have to be pushed, not just by the manager, by everyone surrounding Manchester City that we have to win it. And still we don’t have that feeling — the feeling that the fans are pushing that we have to win the Champions League.”

Meanwhile, Leonardo Bonucci has revealed he turned down Manchester United in the summer to return “home” to Juventus.

The Italy international stopper made a controversial switch to AC Milan before the 2017/18 season, but returned to Turin exactly a year later after a poor season at the San Siro.

Speaking ahead of the Old Lady’s Tuesday Champions League clash with the Red Devils, the 31-year old has told how he rejected an approach from both Jose Mourinho’s side and Manchester City to go back to Juve.

Asked whether he had rejected an offer from United, Bonucci replied: “Yes.”

“The decision was not made until June but it’s true that I had this feeling inside me (to go back to Turin).

“So, when my agent told me there was a tangible opportunity to go back I just stopped listening to anyone telling me what to do, I stopped listening to any kind of suggestion and I just said ‘okay, let’s go home’.

“There have been some possibilities both with Manchester City and with Manchester United. With Manchester City when I received that offer (in 2016) I actually talked to the club, I talked to Juventus and we decided that it was good for me to stay and to keep on winning with Juventus.

“And this year when I was told there was a possibility to go back home, to come back to Juventus I just stopped listening to any other offers and I decided to come back here.

“Here, I really do my best, I just push myself to the maximum and that’s something at Milan I really didn’t manage, I didn’t succeed to achieve and that was probably because in my heart I had already made the decision that I wanted to go back home.”

Juventus top Group H with maximum points from two games while United are in second place with four points.

Fixtures
Today: Club Brugge v Monaco (18:55 Jan Breydelstadion), PSV v Tottenham Hotspur (18:55 Philips Stadion), Liverpool v Crvena Zvezda (21:00 Anfield), Barcelona v Internazionale (21:00 Camp Nou), PSG v Napoli (21:00 Parc des Princes), Lokomotiv Moskva v Porto (1:00 RZD Arena), Borussia Dortmund v Atletico Madrid (21:00 Signal-Iduna-Park), Galatasaray v Schalke 04 (21:00 Turk Telekom Stadyumu). — Sport24.