Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne has said the team needs to learn after their third consecutive Champions League quarter-final exit.
The Citizens were ousted by two late goals from Moussa Dembele as Lyon beat City 3-1 to set up a semi-final with Bayern Munich.
The Belgian who scored City’s goal lamented that the club has found itself in the same spot every year and they need to learn.
“It’s a different year, same stuff.
“The first half wasn’t good enough. In the second half, we played well and had them under pressure. We were more offensive. Lyon didn’t really create but we need to learn,” he told BT Sport.
Manchester City has just EFL trophy to boast of
Man City had finished second in the Premier League, with only the EFL Cup to boast of as their only major trophy of the season.
In their last three quarter-finals, City lost to Monaco, Liverpool, and Tottenham respectively in Pep Guardiola’s time in charge. The last time Guardiola won the Champions League was in 2011 with Barcelona.
On his part, Manchester City boss Guardiola thinks tactics is not the most important thing in the competition.
The Spaniard, who has often been accused of overthinking his tactics in big Champions League matches played a 3-5-2 formation with wing-backs instead of his usual 4-3-3 as center-back. In the starting line-up, Eric Garcia replaced attacking midfielder Phil Foden in the team that beat Real Madrid.
“In this competition, tactics is not the most important thing,” said
“We worked three days on this. We discussed it and reviewed it. The way we played was really good. It was not a problem. I know how it works. I know why we did it.
“We will recover and restart and try to do it again. I am not able, with these guys, to break this line at the quarter-final.
“I think after what these guys have done, we deserve to go through but we are not able. Life is how you stand up again and next season we are going to try again.”
Speaking on Lyon’s second goal that saw Dembele clipped City defender Aymeric Laporte and the video assistant referee allowed the goal to stand, Guardiola said the club won’t be finding an excuse.
“It happened many times in this competition but I don’t want to talk about anything now because it will be like we we are finding excuses as a club. It is what it is,
Raheem Sterling would have equalized for City some seconds before the third goal but missed an empty net from close range.
Guardiola who also noted that the players are sad in the locker room said it’s part of the game.
“I have not seen him. We will talk in the hotel. The players were sad in the locker room. It is part of the game.”
