Pep Guardiola has dismissed the notion that Manchester City could give Manchester United a Liverpool-style walloping in the derby tomorrow. Guardiola thinks that the lessons learned by his opposite number Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the last fortnight will ensure that the Blues cannot run riot, and that it will be a typically tight, competitive derby.
Pep Gurdiola said: “If you want to do it like Liverpool you want Jurgen Klopp, (Sadio) Mane and (Mo) Salah to come. We cannot play like Liverpool play because we have different players and different ways to play. If you see in the last four five or six years in the Premier League looking at the games played by Liverpool and City you know we play differently. We are going to try and do our game as a team but we have different qualities in a different way. Maybe right now if United played Liverpool they would play in a different way, and it would not be the result they had at Old Trafford because everyone learns from it. Brugge lost 1-5 at home (to City) playing four at the back but changed something and played 5-3-2 and changed more direct. It was different. Every manager learns from what works or didn’t work and what you have to do to fix it.”
Guardiola has also taken careful note that the loss of Raphael Varane with a hamstring injury may force United to revert to four at the back after they switched to three at Tottenham, a week after the shock Liverpool defeat, and won 3-0.
Pep Guardiola said: “We have the quality to play like Liverpool play (but) we play a different way. Football is not ‘copy paste’. After this (Liverpool) defeat they changed the set-up against Tottenham and it worked and they changed the set up against Atalanta but after they got an injury to (Raphael) Varane and they changed to four. I know from playing United in the Champions League when they are losing they put on a lot of strikers and when they are winning they put on more defenders. We will see tomorrow what they will do.”
