The Daily Telegraph - Sport

Walker: We must use Real loss as fuel to win Double

Kyle Walker has told his Manchester City team-mates not to throw their season away and to use the pain of their Champions League eliminatio­n to win the Double.

The City captain, 33, returned from injury for the penalty shootout defeat by Real Madrid on Wednesday and said there was “fire in our belly” for tomorrow’s FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea and the Premier League title run-in.

Defeat against the Spanish league leaders came despite 33 shots on goal and the 14-time European champions intent on defending with a low block.

“It hurts and we’ve got to feel the pain,” Walker said. “It’s a setback. Hopefully that give us the motivation to go on and do something special at Wembley. You have to take it on the chin and move on now.”

After winning the treble last season, City now have to face Chelsea at Wembley to reach the final of the FA Cup, and have six games left in the Premier League and a twopoint cushion at the top. “It’s part of our job – we are profession­als, and we have to do it. We owe it to the fans and the lads as a group of players because we’ve worked too hard to throw it away now,” Walker said.

“We’ve got a massive run-in for the Premier League, a really big game against Chelsea and we have to take this as motivation to go on and do something special.

“The best thing in football is you have a game to put it right next week and Saturday is a massive game. It’s a great opportunit­y to take this hurt and fire in our belly.”

While Walker congratula­ted Real for setting up their semi-final against Bayern Munich, team-mate Rodri was critical of their defensive style at the Etihad Stadium.

“To be honest, I’ve only seen one team,” Rodri said. “They defend and know how to suffer. We know how tough beating Madrid is, but in my opinion we should have gone through.

“Their only shot on target they had went in, and we were trailing for most of the game. We have had chances and if we had been more clinical, we would have won the game. Real Madrid won the tie, but in my opinion we deserved to go through.”