Root and Stokes grind down weary India to stretch lead beyond 100
Guardiola's focus turns to Champions League after thrashing Luton
Luton Town goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski fails to stop Manchester City's Mateo Kovacic from scoring their side's second goal of the game during the Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester, April 13, 2024
Manchester City 5-1 Luton Town
by James Nalton
at City of Manchester Stadium
PEP GUARDIOLA’S focus turned to the Champions League following Manchester City’s 5-1 victory at home to Luton Town on Saturday.
City scored four goals in the last half an hour of the game through Mateo Kovacic, Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku, and Josko Gvardiol after Daiki Hashioka’s unfortunate own goal had given them the lead in the second minute.
Luton pulled one back through Ross Barkley but were out of the game by then.
City manager Guardiola was pleased to be a step closer to qualifying for next season’s Champions League, something he described as the biggest target at the start of the season.
He then turned his attention to the big quarter-final second leg against Real Madrid on Wednesday.
The scores are level at 3-3 from the first leg. Guardiola hopes the atmosphere at the City of Manchester Stadium will help them over the line.
“The team is alive,” he said of their position, competing for big trophies at the end of the season.
“Yes, it’s a difficult one next against Real Madrid, but at the same time — let’s try it, let’s go and do it.
“What we have with our people together, whatever happens, the people know we will give everything. There is not one minute we won’t try to do what we have to do.
“To be a humble team, to be a team with solidarity, to try to attack with belief — we can do it with all our desire.
“I want the [stadium] full, not one seat empty. I would say it’s not been empty for many years, but go there and let them feel we want to try it again, we want to get to the semifinal.
“This is what we want to feel from our crowd and ourselves, from minute one until the end.”
The game against Luton saw a collection for the Manchester Central Foodbank, organised by supporters.
It marked a foodbank awareness day, an initiative encouraged and organised by the 1894 supporters’ group and Manchester City Foodbank Support.
A banner bearing the words “hunger doesn’t wear club colours” adorned the supporters’ section, and around 30 shopping bags worth of food, full to the brim, were collected.
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