Pep Guardiola fears his Manchester City side might relinquish the league title to Arsenal after making it to the semifinals of the Champions League as their quest to win numerous competitions could adversely exhaust his players.
City defeated Bayern Munich 4-1 overall to go to a rematch with Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-finals.
Arsenal is four points ahead of Guardiola’s team in the Premier League, but they have a game in hand when they take on Sheffield United on Saturday in the FA Cup semifinals. City will need to play 13 more games this season if they want to have a chance of winning the treble and reaching both major finals.
“We are exhausted,” said Guardiola as quoted by Skysport. “I don’t know how we recover to play against Sheffield United [in the FA Cup semi-final]. Now is a tough moment for the game on Saturday.
“Three years in a row in the semi-finals of the Champions League. “We struggled in the first half. Upamecano broke all the lines down our left side and we struggled with Coman. We were fortunate before the penalty miss, they had one or two chances and anything could happen but we defended really well.
“The finishing from Erling was really, really good. He is so young. The experience that we have in this competition, the players feel it a lot, they want to do it really well. The second half was much, much better since minute one.”
Holding a commanding 3-0 lead from the first leg, City weathered an early storm in Germany before Erling Haaland’s composed finish in the 57th minute effectively confirmed his side’s place in the last four for a third year in a row.
Guardiola said: “The result of 4-1 doesn’t really show what was the two games, from my point of view. I could not expect differently for how good they are – the physicality, the ideas.
Meanwhile, check out Man City’s remaining fixtures
April 22: Sheffield United (Wembley) – FA Cup, kick-off 4.45pm
April 26: Arsenal (H) – Premier League, kick-off 8pm
April 30: Fulham (A) – Premier League, kick-off 2pm, live on Sky Sports
May 3: West Ham (H) – Premier League, kick-off 8pm, live on Sky Sports
May 7: Leeds United (H) – Premier League, kick-off 2pm, live on Sky Sports
May 9: Real Madrid (A) – Champions League
May 13: Everton (A) – Premier League, kick-off 3pm
May 17: Real Madrid (H) – Champions League
May 20: Chelsea (H) – Premier League, kick-off 3pm
May 28: Brentford (A) – Premier League, kick-off 4.30pm
TBA: Brighton (A) – Premier League
