Pep Guardiola, Manchester City manager, says that any other club would have said after the long round to win the Premier League champions earlier this season.
The city takes over its competitors Manchester United in Old Trafford Super SundayLive on Sky SportsIn an attempt to keep pushing them to football in the Champions League next season, after it is now in the similar side that won the last four Premier League titles in a row.
However, such a scenario seemed a distant dream for the city’s fans after the Guardiola team endured only one victory in 13 games in all competitions in November and December, which made them go down in the seventh place completely unfamiliar on the table on boxing day.
The list of the mantle injuries, including the AFC Champions League at the end of the season, is partially gathered by the AFC Champions League player, although the manager also holds his hands.
Guardiola said: “One of the main reasons is the absence of many injured players in important departments, so we were competing in the strongest period with 12 to 13 players in the team.”
“It is difficult every three days. In the past when we won a lot, although we have faced many problems as well. Not such a season, but a lot. We have always been able to apostasy and overcome the situation.
“I could not help the team this season. I couldn’t find the right trick. In the past I managed to guide them, to tell the men,” this is the way you should do to stay at that moment, because good moments will come. The sun rises in the future. We could not do this. “
However, Guardiola admits that he was expecting a kind of decrease in shape after his team won four consecutive titles, but he did not think he would be severe.
“I said several times and I am incredibly sincere – the success we achieved in the past, so he surprised me because I did not expect it,” he said.
“What happened this season, when in the last two or two seasons more or less, I said it would happen. But I did not expect perhaps deep, as you know.
“I thought,” Well, we will go down. “But in terms of results, in terms of performance, we have decreased unexpectedly.”
In fact, in fact, heading to the former Manchester Derby in the Federation in December, when Guardiola – who signed a new deal for two years in November – signed his job in the city would be at a threat if the team did not start winning again.
City lost again on that day as United came from behind to win 2-1 late, and Guardiola said that in any other club, without all the success he achieved to Al-Ittihad since 2016, he would have lost his job.
“In other clubs, without the last success, I would have said, definitely,” he said. “This is a big club that you should provide good things.
“But I also think that we are all, the employees, I, deserve a chance, after we have in the past.
“In another club, in another environment, we lost a lot of games in big clubs, this could not happen. But fortunately, they gave me (the city council) a vote on confidence.”
Looking at the next season, Guardiola said he expects to return to the old city.
“At the moment, we had bad moments, but listen, in football, in sport, you have that period, so I also said many times, you cannot win all the competitions you face,” he said.
“You cannot win all the time because it is simply impossible. So, I never expect when we won last season in the Premier League, we won in the next ten years.
“A lot of things happened. What happened last season, this does not mean that this will happen next season. We hope that this season will happen next season. Of course, we have to change things, certainly. But the next season will be better.”
While Guardiola said that he will give his players everything in the last eight games of the campaign to qualify for the Champions League next season – City is currently sitting in fifth place, which will be enough to see them progressing in the leading club competition in Europe – it is also fast indicating that it will not be the end of the world if they do not.
“How many important clubs are in the last three, four years or five years have not played in the Champions League and are still there? The club will find a solution,” he said. “Of course, we want to be there. But if it doesn’t happen, what is the next? We cannot stop and complain all the time.
“Of course, it is in our hands. We have eight games. So, we will go to it. We are the only club in the past fifteen years, every season in the Champions League. This is consistency. This is the club, and how much we have done so. We want to continue this way.
“The club will not die. With regard to what we have to do for the next season, and our presence there. But, of course, we have on Sunday Derby. After seven games I left and four at home, three times. All are difficult. I do not deny that because it’s good.”
Nevertheless, Guardiola believes that he saw enough victory in City in Bournemouth in the quarter -finals of the FA Cup on Sunday and at home to Leicester City in the league on Wednesday to give him a real belief.
“In the last two games, I saw something I like,” he added. “I remember some of the things we have seen in the past. This is what we should build from there.”
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