Manchester City Director of Football Txiki Begiristain reveals Champions League ambition
Thursday 24 August 2017 22:03, UK
Manchester City Director of Football Txiki Begiristain has targeted a regular place in the later stages of the Champions League.
Pep Guardiola's side will face Shakhtar Donetsk, Napoli and Feyenoord in Group F after the draw was made on Thursday for the group stage of the competition.
City were knocked out on away goals by Monaco in the last-16 of last year's Champions League but Begiristain feels they should be making it to the last-eight or better on a regular basis.
"We want to be a football Club where we are always there in the quarter-finals, semi-finals and getting to finals," he told the club's official website.
"We want to be there every year. We want to be consistent in our performance and for that I think we are ready to do it.
"We are improving every season, we are improving the squad.
"We have refreshed the team and we are hoping that we can remember what we did two years ago when we got to the semi-finals and why not even more?"
Begiristain has a healthy respect for this season's opponents, despite City managing to avoid some of the big hitters of European football such as defending champions Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and Bayern Munich.
"Of course, it is difficult [against Shakhtar Donetsk]," he added.
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"They are always building good teams, they sign good players, so it's going to be also difficult to go there and beat them.
"And the rest of the group…Napoli is probably for me now the best team playing football in Italy, they are doing unbelievable football. We saw against Nice they did unbelievable, so we have to be careful.
"And always Feyenoord, touch football, they like to play and what they do, they do well. I don't know whether to say I am happy or nervous.
"The fact is it's not going to be easy."
Manchester City face Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium in a Sky Live clash on Saturday lunchtime. Coverage begins on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football at 11:30am.
