Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola has stated that winning the quadruple is "not going to happen", as The Citizens squeezed into the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup with their 4-3 penalty shoot-out victory over Leicester City.
Not thinking about many titles, just the next game
It has been an excellent start to the campaign for City across all fronts especially in the Premier League as they have a 11-point gap at the top along with a run of 16 consecutive wins, however as the Catalan has previously stated that it is all about silverware and have gone a step closer when they visited the King Power Stadium on Tuesday night.
City took the lead through Bernardo Silva in the 26th minute following decent chances from İlkay Gündoğan, they looked to have secured their passage in normal time but a very late, controversial penalty from Jamie Vardy took it to extra-time and eventually to penalties.
The first seven penalties were executed brilliantly before Vardy struck it off the post and Claudio Bravo saving Riyad Mahrez's effort, their victory has further increased talks of City completing a quadruple but Guardiola quashed such a prospect post-match.
"That is not going to happen," Guardiola stated post-match when asked if City could win the quadruple. "Of course not. Come on, that isn't real. What we're living isn't real."
"That is not going to happen," the coach proclaimed. "The situation of winning 16 or 17 games in a row in the league and qualifying for the Champions League before we finished the group stage and now we're here playing with a lot of young players."
"That is not normal. In football you drop points and you lose competitions," Guardiola added. "I am not thinking about how many titles, I am thinking about the next game."
Bravo the hero once again
It was a rare night off for Ederson who has been top-class since his world-record move from Benfica in the summer, Bravo got a run out but showed flashes of why he was dropped in the first place nearly making a major error from Vardy in the second period.
Much like in the previous round against Wolves Bravo rose to the occasion in the penalty shoot-out where he saved another crucial spot kick, and young defender Oleksandr Zinchenko hailed Bravo as a "hero" following their shoot-out win.
"I was due to be the fifth penalty taker but I am so happy because Claudio was the hero again," the defender stated on the heroics of the goalkeeper. "And many congratulations to him and all the team."
"It was an amazing difficult game and Leicester were the champions just two years ago," the Ukrainian stated. "So we are very happy to get the win."
"We played not bad until the penalty," Zinchenko concluded. "And controlled the game until the last moment."