Guardiola: Keep fan ban brief

Pep Guardiola has spoken out against playing matches behind closed doors for a prolonged period.

The Manchester City manager is certain that England will take the same route as first Italy, and now Spain, Portugal and a host of other leagues in taking games behind closed doors, and he and his players will follow whatever instruction is issued by the league and the government.

But, he said: “If it’s a short time like one game, then OK, but if it’s longer it must be suspended.

“There is no reason to play without the people. This game is for the people. It’s like an actor going to the theatre when nobody is there. Who are you acting for that night? It’s for the people.”

With Spain facing a similar problem to England with coronavirus, it must be in doubt as to whether fans will be able to attend City’s Champions League game at home to Real Madrid next Tuesday.

“We’ll see what happens over the next few weeks,” Guardiola said. “Maybe attendances going down solves the problem, then OK, we will continue with the games. Now Barcelona-napoli is behind closed doors, Bayern Munich-chelsea too. I think it’ll happen soon here. But if it happens for four, five, six games it makes no sense.

“I would not love to play matches in the Premier League or Champions League or the cups without the people. But we are going to follow the instructions of the governments.”

On the field, Guardiola must prepare his team for tonight’s rearranged league game with Arsenal at the Etihad, in what could be one of the final games to be played with fans allowed to attend.

City must regroup from Sunday’s 2-0 loss to United in the Manchester derby, as they take on a side slowly making strides forward under former City assistant Mikel Arteta.

After 3½ years working alongside Guardiola, Arteta took the top job at the Emirates in December and his team are on an unbeaten eight-game run in the league in 2020.

“Mikel knows perfectly well the way we feel, the way we want to play,” said his old mentor. “He knows the strong points and weak points of every single one of our players.

“He has more information about us than I have about the Arsenal team, but that’s normal.”