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Guardiola not thinking about next season as Man City narrow their focus on Champions League

Pep Guardiola is not allowing his attention to drift towards next season despite seeing Manchester City dumped out of the FA Cup, with a Champions League crown still there to be shot at.

Having already lost their grip on one domestic prize in 2020, as Liverpool snatched away the Premier League title, another piece of silverware has been relinquished by those at the Etihad Stadium.

They have landed the Community Shield and Carabao Cup in the current campaign, but the odd wobble has been suffered along the way.

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City have also had to fend off the threat of two-year European ban being imposed on them, with an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport required in order to get that lifted.

Guardiola is now in a position to start planning longer-term, with the threat of imminent exits lifted on the back of a ruling from CAS.

The Catalan coach is, however, eager to ensure that focus remains locked on the present.

City, who will finish as Premier League runners-up in 2019-20, still have two top-flight games to take in this term before then chasing down continental glory.

“I am not thinking about next season,” Guardiola told the Blues’ official website on the back of a 2-0 defeat to Arsenal at Wembley.

“We had two titles to fight for and we lost one.

“We have another one and once we have finished, we are going to think about what we have to do for the team."

Guardiola will not allow heads to drop after slipping out of the FA Cup, with the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss adamant that City did enough to see off Arsenal and were not undone by tactical deficiencies.

He added: “What these players have done is incredible. But we lost an FA Cup semi-final. You have to play 90 minutes, but we played just 45 minutes.

"In the first half, everything was sloppy, it was not the right rhythm for this kind of game, to reach a final.

“The question is how many chances we had and how many they had. Possession is part of it, but it’s not everything. It’s how many chances you create through the possession.

“When you play in that way, always they can use the counter-attack. How many counter-attacks was not the problem. It was maybe one or two actions. It was not about tactics.”

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