Guardiola: We are not ready

PEP Guardiola has warned that his Manchester City team aren’t ready for the start of the season next weekend and that, like last year, they will inevitably begin slowly.

With so many Brazilian and England internationals in his squad, players who reached the Copa America and Euro 2020 finals respectively and who will only return to training this weekend, Guardiola says it is impossible to be match-ready for next Sunday’s season opener against Tottenham.

Guardiola said: ‘How can we be ready when the players are training three or four sessions? I would love to have the Brazilian guys and the

English players. But they finished the season three weeks ago, so they have to rest.

‘It’s just adapt, adapt, adapt. That’s what we did last season when we started a little bit flat in terms of results. But after a while, we were there and started to win. With what I saw today I’m incredibly confident that many good things are going to happen this season.’

He was full of praise for £100million signing Jack Grealish, who managed 25 minutes in the 1- 0 Community Shield defeat by Leicester, despite having had four weeks off since he played here in England’s Euro 2020 defeat by Italy.

‘He was really good,’ said Guardiola. ‘Aggressive going against full-backs. Our target is to let him express his quality.’

Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers revealed that Wesley Fofana’s horror leg break in midweek has also left ligament damage which means the centre-half will be out for the best part of six months.

Rodgers said of his team’s win: ‘I think we’ve seen there the spirt of the players, by winning it they have that feeling. And that’s where it begins, where success starts.’