Pep Guardiola will not allow Manchester City to rest on their laurels because they do not have to look far to see how quickly success can disappear.
Pep Guardiola said: “A long time ago United controlled this league like no other team: could you imagine in that time they would go eight seasons without winning the Premier League? Could someone in this country think about that? But it’s happened. And if it happened to United it can happen to us tomorrow. Not next season, to-mo-rrow. It happens. Because football is so difficult and unpredictable because the human being is imperfect. We are not perfect so it happens. But the way we resolve that is to look at ourselves. I said many times to the players that we play against us. With all respect to our opponents, we play against us. This is the target. We have to perform for ourselves as high as possible. If the opponent is better, we accept it and wake up in the morning to improve to beat [them] the next time. But we play against our best. We have to reach our best every single game, or try to reach it every single game.”
Guardiola predicted on Friday that 95 or 96 points would be needed to win the title – a total Liverpool can only reach if they do not drop a single point between now and the rest of the season. The best way the Blues can handle that pressure, according to their manager, is to each push themselves to be the best version of themselves that they can every time they step onto the pitch.
Pep Guardiola said: “We face an opponent but this is not important, what’s important is ourselves. If we face a team that defend so deep that don’t want to attack in certain moments it’s complicated like Brentford, okay we have to deal with that. We play and Fulham is completely different, guys who want to play take the ball and they are eight or nine points clear in the championship one game in hand and is about us how you deal with that. This is the mindset since day one. I try to focus in Manchester City and ourselves since the day I arrived here. No excuses here, no excuses with me. If you start to complain, you are not able to play in this team.”
