Pep’s gratitude for impressive squad
CITY made 10 changes last week – and still cruised past Premier League side Fulham in the Carabao Cup.
And the ease with which they disposed of a virtually full-strength top-flight team – albeit one that is now sitting at the bottom of the table – had some speculating whether the Blues could field TWO teams that would challenge for the top four.
Obviously, that would require players from those two teams to avoid injury and suspension for the entire season, but as a hypothetical exercise it as interesting – and one which Pep Guardiola was asked this week.
The Blues boss rarely makes bold claims about the future, so he was hardly going to take the bait on this question, but he did use it as an opportunity to pinpoint the one thing still missing from his squad’s mentality. He said he did not know if City could field two top teams, but added: “If we win, people will say yes.
“I have said many times how grateful I am for Manchester City providing this squad for me.
“I am unfair every weekend to leave people out when they deserve to be there. We have a deep squad, we are three years together and we know each other quite well.
“It’s three seasons and with most of the guys I have the meetings, but you don’t need to say too much about the opponents because they already know it.
“A lot of games, a lot of reviews and they know exactly what we have to do in terms of our opponents. You always have to do it, though, because during the game if the situation is not going well they cannot wait until halftime or full-time to know what happened.
“They need to solve it and make a solution immediately. That is when you take another step but still we don’t have that situation. We’re working to reach that.”
Ilkay Gundogan and Nicolas Otamendi are both back in contention tonight.
Midfielder Gundogan (hamstring) has been out for the past month while defender Otamendi has been troubled by a tendon problem in recent weeks.
Playmaker Kevin de Bruyne (knee) and goalkeeper Claudio Bravo (Achilles) remain on the sidelines.