Man City’s Pep Guardiola: UCL absence could hurt transfer plans

Pep Guardiola has warned that Manchester City could miss out on their top transfer targets if they fail to qualify for the Champions League.

City are fifth in the table with six games to go ahead of their trip to Everton on Saturday.

Fifth place will be good enough for a place in next season’s Champions League, but Chelsea and Aston Villa sit just a point further back.

Guardiola is expected to oversee a revamp of his squad in the summer after a disappointing campaign.

But he admits the club could struggle to land their priority signings if there’s no Champions League football on offer at the Etihad Stadium.

“It’s a good question,” said Guardiola.

“It depends on the players we want and whether they just have one option.

“If they have many, I’m pretty sure the players take a look at the ones in the Champions League, of course.”

Sources have told ESPN that Bayer Leverkusen forward Florian Wirtz is one of the names in the frame to replace Kevin De Bruyne.

However, there’s also interest from Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, who will both play in the Champions League next season.

“I don’t know,” said Guardiola.

“Maybe players come anyway and there are other ones who say they don’t want to go because of no Champions League. I don’t know. I didn’t speak with one player potentially for the next season so I don’t know.”

City already invested £180 million in new players in January and are expected to bring more new faces ahead of next season.

De Bruyne is the only confirmed departure so far, although there are doubts surrounding the futures of a number of senior squad members.

Guardiola has usually wanted to work with a small group of first-team players and hinted that, despite suffering a number of injuries this season, he wants to continue doing so.

“I have a big squad now and one or two players cannot even travel to Goodison Park and that is terrible, it’s awful,” he said.

“It makes no sense for those players, they don’t even go on the bench, they stay at home and wonder ‘what am I doing here?’ They cannot do their job.

“The most important thing is analysing who will be more reliable. This is important. If a player can be reliable, OK we don’t need more.

“If a player will be like this season, play just 20%, 25% of the games, if he stays, maybe we need another player in that position because he’s not reliable.

“The question is next season. If we have players who are not reliable, and they are going to stay here, we are going to have to make a larger squad. But that is the balance we have to find by talking and talking and talking.”