While Guardiola vowed to fight in the return leg, his outlook was notably pragmatic given the mountain his side must now climb. When asked what chance they have to progress, the City boss told reporters: "Right now, not much. Of course we are going to try. Now everything is more difficult... but we will be there, we will be with our people, we can do more to be better in the final third and we will try."
The manager faced criticism for starting Jeremy Doku, Savinho and Antoine Semenyo in support of Erling Haaland, though he denied over-tinkering with his line-up. He added: “No, not many changes. More changes at Newcastle, in the last games most of the players played. I wanted them aggressive on the outside one against one. Jeremy was outstanding, and we struggled a bit more on the right. We arrived many times to have the sense that we could score a goal and try to see what happened in the second, but they arrived three times and scored three goals.”