City currently sit in fifth place, outside the Champions League qualifying plans, and Guardiola concedes this could prove a factor in persuading players to move to the club this summer.
He said, "It depends on the players we want and whether they just have one option. If they have many (options), I'm pretty sure the players take a look to the ones in the Champions League, of course.
"Maybe players come anyway and there are other ones who say they don't want to go because of no Champions League. I didn't speak with one player potentially for the next season so I don't know.
"In the conversations with the club, the club don't have one list for the Champions League and one list for relegation battle.
"For all the clubs it is better to be in the Champions League than the Europa League, that’s for sure. You have to earn it. Nothing in this world is taken for granted and you have to deserve it to play next season there."
Shift in transfer criteria
Guardiola admits a player's fitness record will be taken into consideration when seeking new additions.
He explained: "The most important is to analyse who will be more reliable than the other ones. The player is reliable? Okay, we’ll need more.
"If the player’s like this this season or last season, playing 20 per cent of the games or 25 per cent of the games, if he stays maybe we will get another player for that position because he is not reliable. We’ll have to make a bigger squad.
"More than the quality, as I have no doubts on that. If you ask me about the squad this season, it has been exceptional. I have no complaints, the problem is we don’t have them.
"If you ask me to analyse the players all fit - the Rodri, John (Stones), Nathan (Ake), Manu (Akanji), Erling (Haaland) - all of them fit, the team is exceptional. But unfortunately during the season we haven’t had that."