Man City spurred by Spurs friendly, says Guardiola
MANCHESTER, Uni t ed Kingdom: Pep Guardiola believes the seeds for Manchester City’s extraordinary season were sown during a3- 0victoryoverTottenham Hotspur in a pre-season friendly in the United States.
City crushed Tottenham again on Saturday, a 4-1 win at the Etihad Stadium giving Guardiola’s side a record 16th successive Premier League victory and keeping them 11 points clear at the top of the table.
Spurs lie 21 points below them in seventh place, having finished eight points above City last season, and Guardiola thinks the tide began to turn in July’s friendly in Nashville.
“Tot tenham Hotspur last season, compared to Chelsea, played the best football in the Premier League,” said the City manager.
“I’m quite happy because I think this season started going well in our game in LA ( sic) against Tottenham in pre- season. Our first game in pre- season was against ( Manchester) United and we lost.
“The second one (actually the third, after a 4-1 win over Real Madrid) was against Tottenham.
“There we created maybe eight, nine or 10 chances to score a lot of goals. We missed a lot. But we saw altogether, ‘OK, that is the way we have to do that.’
“And since then we maintained that level. Ups and downs, of course. For example, in Bournemouth and against Southampton we won in the last minute.
“But in general we maintained that level that we started with against Tottenham Hotspur in pre-season.
“In pre-season, for the big teams it’s not points, but you have to play like (it’s) an official game. We did it and we’ve maintained that level for maybe three or four months. That’s why we are so happy.”
City will go in search of a 17th successive league win at home to Bournemouth next weekend, which would leave them two wins short of the overall record for Europe’s five major leagues, which Guardiola set with Bayern Munich in 2013-14.
Before that they visit Leicester City in the League Cup quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Gabriel Jesus could come into City’s starting XI at Leicester, having come off the bench to replace Sergio Aguero — and then squandered a penalty — against Spurs. — AFP