The City boss was in a bullish mood ahead of his side’s trip to Brighton, with the Seagulls impressing many this season and currently sitting fourth in the Premier League table
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Pep Guardiola has dismissed any concerns about fatigue as his Manchester City players return to Premier League action.
City swatted aside Club Brugge 5-1 in the Champions League on Tuesday evening, leapfrogging their opponents and moving up to second place in their group.
They go to high-flying Brighton in the Premier League on Saturday evening, and when it was put to Guardiola at his Friday press conference that his side hadn’t won any of their last four fixtures immediately following a Champions League game, the City boss insisted that he wasn’t concerned.
“I don’t take note [of this],” he said.
“Listen, if you want to involve the statistics that this team has done in the last four years you are going to lose. You are going to lose.
“In statistics nobody can beat us, I’m sorry.
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Manchester City FC via Getty Ima)
“I don’t pay any attention about before the international break or after the international break, or before the Champions League or after the Champions League.
“I see how the team is, how they trained today, how they behaved in the last games.
“This is my only concern, to adapt, to adjust. It’s not about the mentality, just about the strategy and the opponent, because the opponent we are going to face tomorrow is different to Brugge, different to Chelsea, different to Liverpool. And Liverpool is different to Brighton.
“So we’ll try to be there and try to do a good game.”
Guardiola also discussed the pressure managers face in the wake of Steve Bruce departing Newcastle earlier this week.
“We are incredibly criticised more than the worst in society because we don’t win games, it’s as simple as that,” he said.
“I’m treated good because we win sometimes, I’m treated bad because we lose. I love it, I love it. I pay no single attention.
“I know as a manager the success is because we have done it, not I have done it.
“From our CEO, our incredible workers, the players of course – that’s why we’re here – the staff and backroom staff the success is because we have done it.
“Because we are in front of the media every three days, that’s why people believe we’re responsible for that.
“The influence is much much minor. In society you want to point [blame] at one person, this person, it’s difficult to understand football is collective and everyone is involved in that, never have I thought I win a game, never ever.
“I am good because my mates help me. We need egos to be better of course and for the people who just like to be about themselves and that – I don’t like to be with them.”
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