Champions League will not allow Man City request from Pep Guardiola

Pep Guardiola is well within his rights to call for patience before the autopsies come in on his Manchester City team and squad.

They have been in worse positions before even if they have never suffered a run of results like this, and six Premier League titles in the last seven years and a Treble make it almost illegal to rule them out of any title race. It says a lot about their ability to bounce back that even if Arne Slot's Liverpool move 11 points clear of them on Sunday with a win there will be plenty who refuse to say that gap is too far for them to bridge.

Knockout competitions are different though, and while City can stay second in the league despite three consecutive defeats they are undoubtedly out of the Carabao Cup following their loss to Spurs last month. While Guardiola is happy to be patient for his players to turn things round, that won't really wash in the Champions League.

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It was a classic Guardiola-ism at the weekend after the Spurs defeat to stress that he hopes his team do well enough to qualify for next season's Champions League since that is their first target, and another early benchmark is to reach the last-16 in the current year. The 36-team group stage has made that more difficult this year, and the 4-1 defeat at Sporting leaves the Blues in a precarious position.

With eight points from their four games, they will probably need another eight - plus a healthy goal difference - to push them into the top eight spaces that avoid two extra games in February as a play-off for the last-16. Trips to Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain look difficult enough already, and any more dropped points at home to Feyenoord on Tuesday will pile even more pressure on the Blues in those tougher matches.

A play-off would cause more complications down the line for a squad that doesn't need any more games, but that is what City are now flirting with after slipping from the high standards that they have set. A win over Feyenoord would be a boost to morale ahead of the trip to Liverpool, but it would also be good for logistical reasons as the Blues look to navigate their entire campaign.