Pep Guardiola admitted he is concerned whether his Manchester City players will recover in time for this weekend’s FA Cup semi-final after their Champions League endeavours.
City completed the job in Europe, beating Bayern Munich 4-1 on aggregate as a second-leg draw in Germany proved good enough. Erling Haaland was once again on the scoresheet, before Joshua Kimmich netted a late consolation from the penalty spot.
The treble-chasers will face Real Madrid in the semi-finals, with a Milan derby deciding the other club that will be in Turkey for the Champions League final on June 10.
City will hope to have two trophies in the bag before then, with Sheffield United up next on Saturday in the the FA Cup, before a pivotal Premier League encounter with Arsenal at the Etihad in midweek.
Guardiola’s boss are huge favourites to see off the Blades, but the City boss believes there will be plenty of tired legs at Wembley against the Championship side.
“Every time we play FA Cup after this competition we are exhausted,” he told BT Sport.
“The team is exhaused, so I don’t know how we are going to recover to play against Sheffield because we play on Saturday. We cannot play on Sunday, because of course United have Europa League.
“It’s so demanding, so I don’t know how we will arrive because now is a tough moment for the game on Saturday.”
Haaland missed a first-half penalty at the Allianz Arena, blasting the spot-kick over the bar, before firing an effort straight at Yann Sommer after the break as he produced an unusually wasteful display.
His goal did come though, his 48th for City this season, and his manager put that penalty miss down to nerves as his side finally look to get over the line and lift the Champions League trophy for the first time.
“The finishing from Erling was really, really good,” Guardiola said.
“He is so young. Everyone here feels the pressure, the result was amazing in Manchester but we didn’t have anything to win today. We are a team that every year is getting better and better.
“The experience that we have in this competition, the players feel it a lot, they want to do it really well. The pressure is there.”
