Pep content to count birdies
Rather than seeing if Manchester City wins the English Premier League, Pep Guardiola will be on the golf course.
The manager plans to be playing a round with son Marius on Sunday when City will be crowned champion if West Bromwich Albion wins at Manchester United.
“Will I hear the scores? Bogey, double-bogey, birdie,” Guardiola said after a 3-1 victory at Tottenham on Saturday.
Even if United doesn’t lose to the league’s bottom team, City can still seal the trophy before playing again. That will be achieved by United losing at Bournemouth on Wednesday or if Jose Mourinho’s side draws with both West Brom and Bournemouth.
City has its swagger back after a demoralizing week that saw the leader fail to seal top spot by losing the Manchester derby and exiting the Champions League.
For now, City is 16 points in front of United with five games to go after impressively inflicting fourth-place Tottenham’s second home loss of the season. And City will secure its third title since 2012 by beating Swansea this Sunday.
“People say it was a big failure, what happened last week, but they don’t understand the reality of football,” Guardiola said.
“You can win the Champions League in seven games, the league is 10 months. I’m sorry; it’s much more important what these guys have done this season. Hopefully we can celebrate with our fans against Swansea and my guys can be champions because they deserve it.”
Gabriel Jesus, Ilkay Gundogan and Raheem Sterling scored in a commanding display that shows why City has 28 wins from 33 matches in the league.
Beating an English rival, though, proved beyond City in the Champions League — going out in the quarterfinals to Liverpool on Tuesday.
Juergen Klopp’s third-place side looks set to seal a place in the continent’s top competition even if it doesn’t lift the European Cup after beating Bournemouth 3-0 to stay 10 points clear of fifth-place champion Chelsea.
Tottenham still occupies the fourth Champions League spot, although Chelsea closed the gap to seven points after coming from behind to beat Southampton 3-2.
Wolverhampton Wanderers will be returning to the Premier League next season after a six-year absence. Promotion was secured from the League Championship after Fulham drew with Brentford.