Guardiola warned ‘be careful’

The Manchester City boss has his team on track to secure an unprecedented quadruple this season, running away with the Premier League and battling on in the FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Champions League.

Burnley were beaten in the FA Cup on Saturday and Lee Johnson’s City are next to stand in the Citizens’ way, playing the first of the two-legged semi-final clash at the Etihad Stadium (7.45pm kick-off) on Tuesday evening.

Anyone expecting Guardiola to rest players for the contest may need to think again, especially after internal warnings from his own staff.

Guardiola said at his pre-match press conference: “We’re going to try and win the game against Bristol (City) and take the best result possible to Bristol away (in the second leg).

“We want to be involved in all competitions; we have to involve everybody.

“From my experience at Barcelona when we won the treble, you cannot talk about that (target) in January because it’s unrealistic. You never know what can happen.

“The most important thing in sport is to see what’s next. You visualise and focus on the next one.

“Some of the players who didn’t play [against Burnley] are going to play [against Bristol City], for sure.

“It’s a semi-final and Bristol (City) have already faced three or four teams from the Premier League and won.

“I’ve seen some minutes of Bristol, not too much yet because I haven’t had time, but I will. My guys have [watched] them and I believe a lot of them – they say ‘be careful Pep’.

“That team have an argument [for] why they are in the semi-final of the Carabao Cup.

“It’s so important to win a first trophy. We want to go to London to play in the final. To become a big club you have to win and lift titles.”

The likes of Kyle Walker, Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva all came off the bench in their 4-1 victory over Burnley - meaning they could be in line for a start at the Etihad tomorrow.