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Pep Guardiola, manager of Manchester City, claims that despite a demanding fixture schedule, he must “take care” of his players like “a father and mother take care of their sons.”
City thrashed Napoli and Manchester United in a weeklong saga before conceding a stoppage-time equalizer at Arsenal on Sunday.
With a growing injury list, City travels to League One Huddersfield Town on Wednesday for the third round of the Carabao Cup.
“We can be a stable team, and we can learn from each other’s mistakes when injured players return,” he said.
Erling Haaland, who was injured in the 76th minute against Arsenal because of a back issue, will not play in West Yorkshire, but Guardiola is optimistic that the Norwegian will be okay for the Premier League game against Burnley on Saturday.
At half-time, Abdukodir Khusanov struck Rayan Cherki and Omar Marmoush at Emirates Stadium, and it’s not yet clear whether Rayan Ait-Nouri will recover from a knock.
City came out of the gate last year, failing to win a significant trophy, and coming off consecutive defeats before the international break, but they have since won three games without losing in any other division.
Since taking over as manager of the second team at Barcelona up until now, Guardiola has always pleaded with the players to give everything to the pitch.
We didn’t do it in some ways last season, but this season, especially in the USA, we started to recover many aspects of our team’s identity that had been missing for many years.
I had no control over the fact that Arsenal could do better when this happened [conceding an equaliser there]. Yes, we can make better decisions, and we will do so.
Because Guardiola claimed he is traveling to London “to become a father for a second time,” midfielder Kalvin Phillips, who has spent the past two seasons on loan at West Ham and Ipswich, is unlikely to play for Huddersfield.
After returning to a 5-5-0 formation on Sunday in an effort to win, Guardiola’s tactics were questioned, and City’s 33% possession was the lowest he had managed in his 601 top-flight games.
He declared, “I’m really proud and satisfied.”
“We made many things up that the previous season didn’t.” Our spirit was incredible. I give the opponents incredible power, but we can’t sustain playing the way we did and don’t want to.
Arsenal are able to do that to other opponents for the majority of their games, and I want to learn that when we draw a game in the same way that we did against them, who are a strong contender and advanced to the Champions League semi-final. That’s a moment I want to remember.
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