Pep Guardiola knows that Manchester City can steal a march on their rivals for the first time this season in a “terribly important” run of games coming up at the Etihad.
Pep Guardiola said: “They are terribly important – and I’m terribly happy. These three games may be a huge, huge part of our Premier League. For what we have in our legs and minds, these three games will be so difficult like Saturday was because we are not fresh. That’s why we need to get through and try to focus on important games, but the fact that we don’t travel… we know how difficult it is going to Budapest and after one day a game at 12.30pm – not 5pm or 6pm. We knew it would be this kind of game, but the good thing is we did it knowing that it was not good like we wanted it to be. We give credit to West Ham, we were not good because they were so good and are in a Champions League position and are brilliant. Sometimes it’s so important to play these kind of games and being able to win – it’s so important.”
A battling performance against West Ham briefly opened up a 13-point lead on Leicester and United, and while that was reduced to 12 on Sunday the next ten days can go a long way to settling the Premier League – especially if they can beat United next weekend.
