I WON’T MAKE EXCUSES... IT’S WORST THING
speak to my players I say, ‘When you complain you look for excuses and when you look for excuses you cannot move forward’.
“Excuses are the worst thing in football and sport.
“Jurgen has said we’ve had two weeks off – and I don’t know what his purpose was.
“You’ll have to ask him. I will ask him.
“Sometimes it is difficult for managers. You finish a game and five minutes later you are so excited that when you see the microphone and are asked an opinion, it is not easy.
“That’s the same for every manager.
“But here, when you are relaxed in a press conference, and you say something... well I never did it.
“OK maybe I’ve done it once or twice when it is an exceptional reason.
“But my lesson in professional football is that when you find an excuse, you cannot move forward.
“Sometimes you have to admit that you made a mistake.”
Liverpool’s season has been decimated by injuries to key players like Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip, Sadio Mane, Thiago Alcantara and Allison Becker.
But City are currently without record scorer Sergio Aguero, PFA player of the year Kevin De Bruyne and £41million summer signing Nathan Ake. In recent seasons under Guardiola they have lost Vincent Kompany and De Bruyne (below) through longterm injury problems.
And last season, they had Leroy Sane and Aymeric Laporte sidelined as Liverpool took the title.
City also spent most of the summer preparing for the Champions League, while Liverpool’s players could relax after lifting the Premier League title.
Guardiola said: “We’ve had problems – and have still done what we’ve had to do to win games. When we haven’t had Kevin or Kompany or Laporte for almost one year now without Sergio, what can I do?
“Do I sit here and wait for them to come back or use the players we have?
“We had 14 players [against Chelsea] at Stamford Bridge. OK we have a fantastic academy, so we go there and play.
“That’s what we do. “We don’t make excuses about not having these players.
“Even now, Kevin is not there, Sergio is not there, Nathan [Ake] is not there.
“I wish that they come back as soon as possible and, with the players that we have, we go and try to win games.
“This is the only way I know. It is the only way I’ve known throughout my career.”