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Barcelona icon Xavi believes that his former manager Pep Guardiola will now turn Man City's focus towards the Champions League after falling further behind in the Premier League title race.

City's hopes of winning the league for a third year in a row were already looking bleak after their worst start to a season under Guardiola, but they were dealt a hammer blow last week.

After holding a 2-0 lead against Wolves, albeit with 10 men, City managed to throw away the lead and lose 3-2 with the comeback being completed with two goals in the last 10 minutes.

With Liverpool beating Leicester on Boxing Day and then picking up a narrow victory over Wolves three days later, they have have extended their advantage over City to 14 points, with a game in hand.

The gap looks almost impossible to climb and while Xavi knows his old boss won't give up, he thinks his attention may turn to Europe's biggest competition.

“Pep is a born winner,” the legendary midfielder told the Daily Mirror.

“It will hurt him that Manchester City are so far behind Liverpool in the league - and he won’t give up.

“He will be realistic though. The gap is a big one and at the moment it doesn’t look likely that they can make it three titles in a row.

“With that in mind, I think there’s a big chance Pep will prioritise the Champions League.

“They will be two big games coming up against Real Madrid - and maybe there will be a chance to rest players before these games that they wouldn’t have if they were in a title race.

“Pep will want to win every trophy that he can - but if you’d asked him at the start of the season what he would prefer, I’m sure he would have said the Champions League.

“He joked with Klopp that maybe Manchester City and Liverpool should swap trophies this year - but there was some truth in that joke, I think.

“He’s won every trophy in England with Manchester City and he knows that winning the Champions League with them would take them to the next level as a club.”