Update: Pep Guardiola makes startling Man City transfer admission amid Champions League race News

Manchester City have Champions League qualification in their own hands – but face stiff competition from five other teams for just three places.

Manchester City could miss out on priority transfer targets if they don’t qualify for the Champions League, Pep Guardiola has admitted.

City are embroiled in a five-horse race for three remaining Champions League spots, currently sitting in fifth. Just three points separate fourth and seventh with Newcastle only two further points ahead in third. City host Aston Villa, who are just a point behind them, next week while Villa and Newcastle face off on Saturday evening.

It is a qualification race that Guardiola feels will go down to the wire and while he is confident of City’s ability to finish in the top five, he accepts that their inconsistent levels this season can’t guarantee anything. He refused to engage in hypotheticals over what could happen if City were to finish in a Europa League place, but in a telling admission he accepted their transfer business could be impacted.

“It depends on the players we want and whether they just have one option. If they have many [options], I’m pretty sure the players take a look to the ones in the Champions League, of course,” he said.

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

Guardiola insisted that City have not separated their transfer targets for the summer depending on whether they are back in the Champions League next term. “In the conversations with the club, the club don’t have one list for the Champions League and one list for relegation battle,” he revealed.

And Guardiola’s verdict on any existing player asking to leave based on a potential failure to reach the Champions League spoke volumes as he brushed off that being an issue. “They have contracts. Except Kevin. All the other have contracts,” he said bluntly.

“The club and organisation decide the best. Now I’m so concerned about the club working behind the scenes, but I’m [more] concerned about these six games and FA Cup.

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“For all the clubs it is better to be in the Champions League than the Europa League, that’s for sure. You have to earn it. Nothing in this world is taken for granted and you have to deserve it to play next season there.”

Instead, Guardiola told his players they will be ‘analysed’ according to their reliability before City decide how many new signings to target in the summer.

He explained: “The most important is to analyse who will be more reliable than the other ones. The player is reliable? Okay, we’ll need more. If the player’s like this this season or last season, playing 20 per cent of the games or 25 per cent of the games, if he stays maybe we will get another player for that position because he is not reliable. We’ll have to make a bigger squad.

“More than the quality, as I have no doubts on that. If you ask me about the squad this season, it has been exceptional. I have no complaints, the problem is we don’t have them. If you ask me to analyse the players all fit – the Rodri, John [Stones], Nathan [Ake], Manu [Akanji], Erling [Haaland] – all of them fit, the team is exceptional. But unfortunately during the season we haven’t had that.”

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