Erling Haaland’s return date and a trip to Wetherspoons? – Every Word from Pep Guardiola’s Wolves preview press conference | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola and Manchester City are now looking towards their next Premier League challenges as Wolves visit the Etihad Stadium in a rare Friday night affair.

The top-five chasing club are fresh off the back of an all-important 0-2 victory over Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-final on Sunday afternoon, setting up their third consecutive final appearance with Crystal Palace later this month.

Manchester City find themselves with a golden opportunity to build out a bigger gap over their fellow Champions League-chasing competitors, after Nottingham Forest fell to defeat in their own return to Premier League action.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s men lost at home against Brentford courtesy of a 0-2 scoreline to find themselves languishing on the brink of dropping out of the top-five in the Premier League table with just a few games remaining in the season.

Pep Guardiola will ensure that his Manchester City side are fully-focussed for the task at hand, consistently instilling the belief into his players that the club have four ‘finals’ remaining in the English top-flight to secure a European campaign for next season.

Now, following the release of Pep Guardiola’s preview press conference ahead of Friday night’s meeting with Wolves at the Etihad Stadium, here is every single word from the Manchester City manager!

On the job of Vitor Pereira at Wolves

“Yeah, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And I think the previous manager, always is an excellent manager. They beat us last season, playing really well defensively, in the transition.

“Sometimes you make a click, you don’t know why sometimes it works, but I’m pretty sure [Vitor] Pereira is an experienced manager, did an incredible job. And always I said the feeling is always Wolves have had exceptional players, playing at high levels in previous teams and always they are good.”

On Vitor Pereira going to the pub with Wolves fans after a match

“Oh yeah?! Ah, that’s good. (Would you consider it with City fans, maybe after the FA Cup?) I’m waiting for the offer. (What’s your Wetherspoons of choice?) I like wine, but I will take a beer as well in that period. I didn’t know it – good.”

On when Erling Haaland could return to the matchday squad

“Soon, I think he’s getting better. He’s injured for four to six weeks, now he’s in between four and five. The injury is not easy, a tricky, tricky injury. But he’s making partial training, almost full training, he’s getting better. Hopefully in the next games he can be there.”

On Manchester City’s Under-18s and the side reaching the FA Youth Cup Final

“They’re making an incredible job. The manager made that team make a step in terms of intensity, aggresivity, and we never had that before here. So congratulate them, of course, for the incredible… again, succeed and I think the players are much better than was maybe one or two seasons ago. They’ve developed a lot, many of things that are necessary to compete in the highest level. Very proud!”

On whether he wants Erling Haaland to play in England before the FIFA Club World Cup

“I hope so. I think he will be able to play before the World Cup. (FA Cup final?) I’m pretty sure all of them will want to play it. When you reach the final of the FA Cup, everyone wants to be involved. It depends on how they feel, how they recover.

“Now is a period when you have to be certain. It’s not already qualified here, we don’t play for anything, after that you can do things but now it’s a final every single game. We’ve been making an incredible effort in the last 11 games unbeaten since Nottingham Forest away, just one draw against [Manchester] United away.

“So we cannot be distracted from anything else. Wolves, Wolves, and Wolves. The rest, we have time to think about it and day by day, see in the training sessions, the physios, doctor, what they are going to say we’re going to try to make the right decisions.”

On the strategy behind substituting Abdukodir Khusanov at half-time against Bournemouth in the FA Cup

“One of the reasons was that [Abdukodir] Khusanov had a yellow card and I didn’t want to take a risk and we wanted to push a little bit more from the left. In that moment I didn’t think that Nico [O’Reilly] was going to play the minutes he’s going to play, the amount of minutes, and Josko [Gvardiol] comes into the middle.

“In that moment it’s true that we have injuries, of course we have Vitor [Reis] and Khusanov, but they are so young in that moment. But that proves that don’t take for granted your position in the starting eleven and don’t take for granted that you are not going to play tomorrow.

“I’ve said this many times, if you tell me in the decisive part of the season to qualify for the Champions League, it’s going to play Matheus [Nunes] or Nico all the time in that positions [full-back] and Josko in the middle, I will say no it’s not possible.

“But it happened because they are playing good, they are stable, they are playing good and we have a good process and the combination for all of them it suits. That is the only reason why. Now I reflect why Nico didn’t played in November, December, January, February or McAtee didn’t play in November, December, January, February, he didn’t play much. ‘Why shouldn’t he have done it, Pep?’

“He should have done it! In that moment I thought maybe they were not ready, maybe they were, and now look what happened. So they are ready, so that’s why they play.”

On whether he sees Josko Gvardiol as a centre-back, left-back, or just as it goes

“He can play both perfectly, but in centre-back he’s doing less mistakes than the days before, months before, he is much, much more solid and stable. And of course we can play there, yeah definitely, keep proving him and doing that.”

On how much thought has been put into rest for Manchester City’s players between the FIFA Club World Cup and the start of the new season

“That’s what it is. Chelsea will have the same problem I think, the other teams that go there and the other teams as well. Maybe here we start a little bit earlier, it will depend if we play the Community Shield or not, if we are able to beat the [FA Cup] final against Crystal Palace.

“Always we change our schedule, so we’ll see. After the final against Crystal Palace we’ll see exactly the days we have but we knew it in the beginning that next season, the pre-season will be a short time. If we have fit players we can rotate and we can handle it, I think so.

“The problem is we have had a lot of injuries, we had that problem this season, and then we’ll have big, big problems.”

On the short summer irrespective of a Community Shield appearance

“I don’t know. I would like to give weeks off but we cannot give it to them. So I don’t know. Try to be, during the season, a lot or as much days off as possible, try to create a good environment in the team, that they are happy to come here to train and play games, and day by day.

“To be honest, I don’t know. Because we need rest that we cannot give them. The players need to be disconnected mentally and physically, but the schedule is the schedule.”

On whether Ederson is ready to be in goal

“Yeah. We’ll decide, but yeah he’s training and has recovered, yeah.”

On the danger of giving Erling Haaland minutes and leading to a setback

“I need to speak with the doctors and the physios. The last game against Nottingham Forest in the semi-final of the FA Cup, he said, ‘I’m not ready’. When he will feel ready, the doctor says, ‘Yeah’.

(Will he be on the bench against Wolves?) “I’m saying yesterday he trained and today we’re going to train and after we’ll talk – like every game – with the doctors. I’m going to say first how does the player feel and after, the doctors as well. I don’t know yet, honestly.”