Pep Guardiola suggested Manchester City will need their academy to get them through a busy January. The Blues were without eight players for their 3-1 win at Chelsea on Sunday, with six missing after testing positive for Covid-19 and another two not fit enough to make the squad. Despite the absences, it was a strong performance from Guardiola’s side to defeat one of their rivals and kickstart a month that potentially includes nine games across three competitions. City head to United in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday – a repeat of last year’s semi-final but played out over one leg this time – and as happy as City’s boss was with the display at Stamford Bridge he cautioned that their absences will make an assault on multiple competitions much more difficult.
Pep Guardiola said “They played really well. Thank you to all the players in a difficult time with friends, players, and backroom staff suffering with Covid, They made a step forward an incredible display at Stamford Bridge against one of the best teams. A good result for us to be close to the top of the league. Still we are a way [off] and now we recover and play in the semi-finals of the Carabao [Cup] and the next game. I am concerned with playing this amount of games in this period with just 15, 16 players. It is difficult to handle in all competitions but we go game by game and will see who is fit. If you want to compete in all competitions you need a full squad but we have the second team that have been training with us. We know they can help us to solve the problems but of course with this amount of games with just 15, 16, players it will not be possible or it will be more difficult.”
