Pep Guardiola says he has no fear of Manchester City’s demanding December, when Chelsea, Leicester City, Arsenal and Liverpool are all opponents.
City, who are third in the Premier League, travel to Burnley on Saturday for November’s final match before embarking on a tough last month of 2016 in which Celtic, in the Champions League, Watford, and Hull City make up the rest of a seven-match fixture list.
Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool are among City’s title rivals and although Leicester are 14th, the champions away should be a tough proposition. Yet when asked about the importance of defeating Burnley before embarking upon all of this, Guardiola said: “It will be complicated for the other teams as well. Of course, it will be so important, like Crystal Palace [whom City beat away last weekend].
“We dropped six points at home when we deserved to win at least two of them. After eight games in the Champions League being there with top teams like Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham is good – and of course with Manchester United, because United are getting better in their last games so are now a real contender to win the Premier League.
“Anything can happen but game by game. I’m not thinking about Chelsea. Let’s focus on Burnley. We didn’t have too many days off, especially the players who played with the national team. After we prepare for Chelsea, then Leicester but every game is completely different.”
On Wednesday night City drew 1-1 at Borussia Mönchengladbach to seal passage to the Champions League knockout stage, with Guardiola using four different defensive units. On Friday he explained why. “Our buildup was not good and that’s why David [Silva] and Kevin [De Bruyne] cannot receive the ball. We believe they have to receive the ball to attack and help Sergio [Agüero] to attack quicker and more often and that’s why we had no problems. We didn’t suffer too much in terms of how many chances we conceded.
“About our buildup – sometimes it was good, sometimes we went four to three in defence It depends on the opponent. The way Gladbach played here at the Etihad [in the reverse fixture] was completely different. There, they were so aggressive, one against one man to man in our build-up. It was different but this kind of thing can happen. We cannot train that, we have to improve during the games but we will do that. It’s not complicated and we have the players to do it.”
Yaya Touré made his first league start under Guardiola at Palace and scored both City’s goals yet Guardiola warned he could leave him out at Turf Moor.
“Everybody is droppable,” the manager said. “Yaya was so important at Crystal Palace with his two goals and how he played but as a team our performance must be better so I am concerned to play better as a team. Of course Yaya can be important, like every other player.
“I don’t want to put the responsibility on Yaya to win the games; I never do that. It would not be good for Yaya or for the team. Yaya is going to play games and some of them are not going to play. The last game at Crystal Palace for example, Stones, Gündogan, David Silva didn’t play.”
