Guardiola: There’s no way to stop us winning
PEP GUARDIOLA has warned opposition managers it is pointless trying to find a way to stop his Manchester City side. Last night’s victory extended their winning run to 18 Premier League matches and opened up a 15-point gap at the top. Newcastle put 11 men behind the ball, an approach that was criticised by Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher. He said it was a ‘sad state of affairs for the Premier League’. But Guardiola says his opponents’ tactics are of little relevance with his team in this sort of form. He said: ‘In these 18 games we have played against teams who have done high pressing and low pressing, counter-attacks, just set pieces, or Tottenham, who tried to go forward and attack. And in all of them we have been able to beat them. ‘The magnificent thing about football is that any manager of any team can play any way, teams can try to trick you, but you have to be able to beat them and until now we have been able to do that. We have always found a way to win.’ City will equal the record set by Guardiola’s Bayern Munich if they make it 19 wins at Crystal Palace on Sunday. This was also their 11th consecutive away win, a new Premier League best. Guardiola added: ‘Of course we are so happy to break records, because we keep having one more, one more, but when we prepare for games we don’t speak about records, we just speak about what we have to do to win. ‘It’s not easy to maintain our focus in this period, everyone is on holiday, everyone has a party at home. To be focused after 17 games in a row is not easy, but we did it.’ Newcastle suffered a fifth consecutive home defeat, their worst run since 1953, but manager Rafa Benitez believes his tactics were justified. ‘If we score a goal at the end then people will be pleased with the performance of the team,’ he said. ‘If you play open against Manchester City, the way they are playing now… Look at what happened to Spurs, Swansea and Bournemouth. So we were close. We could have got a point at the end.’