Pep Guardiola is eager to add a Champions League triumph with Manchester City to his CV.
Pep Guardiola sets course for what he hopes will be a fifth Carabao Cup trophy when Manchester City’s season restarts against holders Liverpool at the Etihad tonight. But the City boss has admitted that it is the Champions League he really wants to land to “complete” his time as manager at the club
Guardiola spoke for the first time since signing a two-year extension to his contract which could see him stay at the club until the summer of 2025. And while another Carabao Cup before he departs, to go with the four consecutive trophies landed between 2018 and 2021 is probably odds on, it is the biggest cup of all that is the itch that needs scratching.
“It’s the trophy we don’t have and we’ll try to do it. I have the feeling they’ll get it sooner or later, we’ve tried in the past, even in the first season even though out in the last 16, we will try with all our strength.”
Neither City nor Liverpool looks likely to be at full strength tonight with the hangover from the World Cup still clinging to those players who were in Qatar. Yet counter-intuitively Guardiola believes the players who reached the crunch stages of FIFA’s extravaganza could be in a better shape and rhythm than the ones who missed out.
The city remains without World Cup winner Julian Alvarez, not due back until just before the new year, Ederson who is back in “a few days” and the England and Portugal players who only returned to training yesterday. Others who were involved in the knockout stages including Rodri, Aymeric Laporte, Manuel Akanji, and Nathan Ake returned on Sunday.
“Maybe some players will need a little bit more time, maybe they will fatigue in March and April, but I’m not able to know yet. Just have to see today, tomorrow, and in the next games,” said Guardiola.
“I have the feeling that those who were at the World Cup are in better condition than players who weren’t. Players who didn’t go lack the rhythm maybe.
“The ones who came back from Qatar have been competing and training every day. Players who were not at the world cup can get the rhythm tomorrow so we have to do it with what we have.”
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