Manchester City must be looking over their shoulders as well as on Premier League leaders Arsenal, manager Pep Guardiola says. Those two games will see City, United and Newcastle all level on 19 games played at the halfway mark of the season, while Arsenal lead the way having only played 18 games. If fifth-placed Spurs were to win at the Etihad on Thursday, they would jump to three points behind City, with Fulham and Brighton surprise packages in sixth and seventh ahead of Liverpool and Chelsea.
Pep Guardiola said: “Every year it has been like that. It’s always difficult. I said many times, when I came here, they said ‘you’re in the top four’ and I always congratulate ourselves and the team. The people say ‘oh it’s false, this guy is false’, but it’s wrong. People say you have to win the Premier Leagues in November and December, but it’s always difficult. So I always give a lot of credit when we qualify for the last 10 or 11 years in the Champions League every season. But it’s not about [that]. It’s about the next game, and the next game, to try to make some consistency in our games, to try to win the games. This is what we have to try to do.”
With eight points to close down on Arsenal, Guardiola was asked if every game is ‘must-win’ for the second half of the season, but the manager was keen to put any talk of the title to one side.
Pep Guardiola said: “I said before, now is not the time to think how many games you have to win to win the title. Just win the next one. Always try to win it – always what we have done, when we won 15 or 18 in a row, we never thought ‘we’re going to do this’. That would be wrong. Just prepare for Spurs and what they do – they are a strong team with a strong mentality, great comebacks, they never give up. They have a lot of quality in all departments, an excellent manager, such a great competitor, so this is what we have to do.”
Guardiola also praised his squad for recent performances, even if results have been inconsistent, and hailed the news that he could have a fully-fit squad to choose from for the first time this season.
Pep Guardiola said: “It’s good they are fully fit, now they have to compete, for benefit of the team and find the best solution. We know each other quite well, many years already the players, the staff, myself. We don’t have to discover, I know them perfectly. When they are performing well they do it. We have to meet in a tough, tough game vs United we behave more than well. We didn’t win but it happens. We perform really well in previous games vs Leeds, Chelsea second half, Chelsea FA Cup, we perform really well, not far away. I learn in my time as a manager, even as a player, I’m not alone in this world. We can do good things, opponents can do things too. Sometimes to give credit to them doesn’t mean we are bad. Another one is better, we have to admit it. This is the target we have to achieve. This is not a problem, the problem is what we have to do tomorrow to do it. When a team loses a game or doesn’t do well or is not good. There are teams who are good too and you have to accept it.”
