Pep Guardiola told his Manchester City players to forget their previous Champions League failures after cruising into the quarter-finals with a 2-0 win over Borussia Moenchengladbach on Tuesday that sealed a 4-0 aggregate victory.
The Champions League is the one trophy that has remained elusive to Guardiola during his five years in Manchester with City failing to ever get beyond the last eight under the Catalan.
But the runaway Premier League leaders will get the chance to break that barrier next month, after another classy performance in Budapest, which hosted both legs of the tie due to coronavirus restrictions on travel between England and Germany.
Progression was never in doubt. City’s ‘away’ goals on the same ground three weeks ago gave Gladbach a mountain to climb. They failed to even reach base camp.
Early goals from Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan killed off any hope of a fightback from the Germans as City recorded a 24th win in their last 25 games in all competitions.
Kevin De Bruyne powered home via the underside of the crossbar at 12 minutes, as City extended their advantage.
Six minutes later a flowing move from back to front saw Phil Foden release Gundogan in behind the Gladbach defence to score his 15th goal of the season.
The out-of-sorts Bundesliga side came into this on a run of six straight defeats, which coincided perfectly with the news that head coach Marco Rose will join Borussia Dortmund next season.
There was none of the usual knock-out stage self-sabotage or over-thinking in Guardiola’s starting line-up but, for the third consecutive game, there was no Raheem Sterling either.
Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus joined him among the substitutes with a fluid front three of Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez and Phil Foden taking turns in the false nine role.
They conceded six goals to Monaco over two legs in 2017, five to Liverpool a year later, four to Tottenham in 2019, and suffered a shock 3-1 defeat to Lyon last season in a one-off tie in Lisbon.
However, the signing of Ruben Dias has transformed Guardiola’s men into the complete team this season as they remain on course for an unprecedented quadruple of Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup.
City have now kept seven consecutive Champions League clean sheets.
Fernandinho, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Aymeric Laporte, Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling were all introduced off the bench in the second half to give Dias, Joao Cancelo, Gundogan, Rodrigo and Bernardo Silva an early night ahead of Saturday’s trip to Everton in the FA Cup quarter-finals.
By then, City will know their next Champions League opponents. On this form, they are the side to avoid in Friday’s quarter-final draw.
