Manuel Akanji solutions and FIFA Club World Cup plans – Every Word from part two of Pep Guardiola’s pre-Newcastle press conference | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has discussed a multitude of talking points during the second-half of his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon.

The Premier League champions will be hoping to make amends from a hugely disappointing collapse at the hands of Real Madrid on Tuesday night, leading 2-1 heading into the closing exchanges before losing 2-3 by the conclusion of the contest.

That result now means that Manchester City require a victory at the Santiago Bernabeu by a two-goal margin at a minimum in order to progress into the last-16 against either Atletico Madrid or Bayer Leverkusen.

Attentions turn to a clash with Newcastle that takes on even greater importance in the chase for a top-four place in the Premier League, after fourth-placed Chelsea lost 3-0 against Brighton & Hove Albion on Friday night.

Following the release of the embargoed section of Pep Guardiola’s pre-match press conference before the clash with Newcastle United this weekend, here is every word from part two of the address with the media from the City Football Academy!

On whether anything can actually be done to reduce the football schedule and how it can be done

“Always you expect injuries during the season, not much but I would think it’s not just a problem for Man City! If you say Tottenham, Arsenal right now, except Liverpool that all season have been so stable in those terms, all the teams, (Real) Madrid for example as well…

“Yeah, many teams when you play accumulating season by season by seasons and this season at the end, like what happened with Manu (Akanji), the body says it’s enough. The solution, or to prevent that?

“I think Jurgen Klopp in the past, myself in the past and right now, the solution is the calendar. I don’t find another reason why there are a lot, a lot of injuries. There’s no other question.”

On whether that means less clubs must be in the Premier League or Champions League

“No, it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen less Premier League games, the Carabao Cup will continue… The only solution I have is 40 players in the squad. (Is that possible?) It’s impossible. Bankruptcy for the clubs. How do you sustain 40 players with their salaries and the transfers and everything, it’s impossible.”

On solutions to Manuel Akanji at right-back

“Well I have Rico (Lewis), I have Matheus (Nunes), I don’t know if (Abdukodir) Khusanov can play there and help us – it depends on the shape we play and the way we attack and defend. We’ll see.”

On whether Manchester City’s two new defensive signings are ready to step in if needed

“They are central defenders. For the position that the reason why we go with Manu (Akanji) and maybe the other ones, they are unstable and doubts, but someone is going to play there.”

On whether the lengthy delay through VAR for Manchester City’s opening goal and players going cold contributed to Jack Grealish’s injury

“I don’t think so! No… I don’t think so. I didn’t speak with Jack about that and how he feels in that moment but I don’t think so.”

On what the Manchester City squad will look like for the FIFA Club World Cup (nearly six minutes in length)

“It’s a big question mark! I would like to give you an answer but I don’t know, a big question mark, that I would say is not a positive feeling. We are in the position that we are but many, many clubs it’s happened.

“I’m saying it’s just asking that practically we changed something but it’s the same departments, medical staff, or the same methodology of the training sessions, because you are doing one way; change the managers, staff, and different methodology of training and immediately injuries, injuries, injuries, injuries and say, ‘Oh maybe it can be related to that!’

“I think in more the age and accumulation of seasons and seasons and seasons, and at the end I think my analysis of that is so simple; it’s the body speaks for himself, and in one moment saying, ‘It’s enough!’ OK kick me hard, kick me hard, but the body says, ‘No, no more! I need to rest, otherwise I will get injured’, and we cannot rest and that’s why because it’s a lot of months.

“But we had in the past and we handled it, and handled it, but mainly the players at the moment say… Because Kevin (De Bruyne) was one of the players with the most games played since eight, nine, ten years ago playing every three days and making an incredible efforts, distances because his physicality, runs that everybody knows, attacking the channels and when we regain the ball with Fernandinho and Rodri, passing to him, running and go.

“He could do it, now he’s 33-years-old and coming back from five months injured last season is not the same. Because the body was injured for five months and said when that happens I go on holidays, but they go to the national team to play a World Cup, European Cup, OH the Conference and new competitions that UEFA did in the season, or maybe now with the World Cup.

“And it’s not about, I don’t think all the managers or the physios or these ones, it’s just this amount of games, and the bodies and players say, ‘I’m tired’. A point on that is we took all the records in England, because when you break that nobody has done four Premier Leagues in a row, it’s different that you break a record of your own and say what’s next?

“We won the Champions League already, four in a row, we have all the records, 100 points, right? When you analyse what I said before and what I said many times to the players and the club, when I analyse eight or nine years, we have done three months really, really bad in nine years! It’s not that bad, no? When people say, ‘Ah Pep what happened?!’ No, no, no… WHAT HAS HAPPENED?! That is the problem! That is not normal!

“It’s not normal now, but it’s not normal in the past, for sure. Who will do 100 points now in modern football? I’m waiting. Or four in a row? I’m waiting… With Bournemouth, with Fulham, with Wolves who will come back and make the level they have done. I asked to (Ilkay) Gundo yesterday, ‘Ask me a question; two years ago you were here and you were one year in Barcelona, and you come back one year – did something change in the Premier League?’

“I said, ‘Massively’. Gundo won the Treble, went to Barcelona for one year and came back. Different in just one year? Unbelievably! That’s the truth; the teams are much, much, much better, in all departments, people prepare so well. Because the standards, we dictate. Have you seen Liverpool this season? They cannot do 100 points already, definitely cannot. 99, but not 100, and look at the season they have done! That made me realise, WOW what we have done!

“And it’s not an argument to defend what we have done in the last three months, but many things have happened that put it into perspective. It’s not what happened now, it’s what HAS happened. And what has happened will be irreplaceable, will be so difficult to compare with what we have done in being consistent for many, many years! And now we realise.

“I could have expected to drop as much as we have now? No, because wow we could not expect to lose a lot of games. But this is the reality, we have to accept it, and we don’t have to defend; accept all the criticisms and the bad moment that we’ve had, you have to accept it because this is not normal. But this is the reality. What can you do? Cry? Complain? No, it is what it is, we are not good enough, we don’t defend these results, when we were 1-0 or 2-0 in the past the opponent is not even close and halfway, we take the ball and have to do it.

“Now we are not good with that! We don’t have the ball, we lose the ball, we take the risk, we make mistakes like are not usual in teams like we have done for many years winning what we have done, but it’s happened, they are human beings, it’s happened. Support, start to analyse, thinking of Newcastle, and after recover, and after Newcastle we’ll see how is our mood, how is our game, how is everything to go to Madrid and continue until the end.

“And if it must happen that we qualify, it’s fine, if not… at the end we dictate the Premier League. We are in this position because we are not who we are before because we are not good enough, so it’s no more than that. If Madrid recover for the two goals that we gave away, it’s because we are not good enough. Madrid could have scored before? Yeah.

“They could have scored a second and a third at 1-0, yeah. It happened in the previous season that we deserved much more than we got, yeah. Today we didn’t get what maybe we deserved, no. But it’s football. Accept it, and go forward.”

On the difficulties for Manchester City’s goalkeepers this season with an ever-changing defence

“It’s not about the keeper; football is an ecosystem, a group. Why defend better if we play worse? Why don’t we play good if we defend better? Why do the goalkeepers not play there because the movements are not prepare, why because everyone is a little bit wanting to do well and in that position everyone is another one.

“It’s not as simple as that; OK get this player and move this player, put this one in another system and everything is going sweet, no! It’s not about Eddie, it’s not about Stefan (Ortega Moreno), it’s not about… Of course now the situation is what happens not in the past. Listen, they say, ‘Why don’t you say something to this player?’ Why?! They know it!

“What do I have to say; come here to criticise or hammer in the locker room saying, ‘Eh why did you do that?!’ Why? They know that we have to do better and not give away the first goal against Arsenal, the second one that (Kai) Havertz could have scored in five minutes.

“Just we give it to them! Doing not as good as we have done in the past is just not giving away the goals like is wow, how is it possible in that level, we will be a thousand times much, much better. We would not finish 22nd (in the Champions League league phase), we would finish higher for sure! In the Premier League we would have six, seven more points, for sure.

“That situation would be different. But it happened because it’s our fault, and you have to accept it. And from that, try to, in the next game, avoid it. To don’t do it. And play better.”

On the problems being partly due to an inability to pick a consistent team

“Yeah, absolutely. Always I rotate a lot the teams but there are moments that everybody knows for maybe one or two rotations, but starting nine, 10, 11 was clear. But we cannot do it for the problems we had and a lot of players that played a lot minutes, they are so tired!

“Emotionally as well because how many games we are 1-0 with 10 minutes left, lose the game. And you lose 3-0, 5-1 against Arsenal, it’s easy to swallow – it’s more difficult against Brentford, Manchester United, the last game against Madrid, these games.

“Because we know that it’s time to suffer, we know that we are not fine, we know that! Guys, we deserve to have a bad season! Come on! In eight or nine years we deserve to don’t be like we were, they are human beings, it can happen. What is the problem? No.

“But we were not consistent for many reasons, especially for that, not having the players at their best for the amount of games and injuries that we had and most players had to play a lot of games.”

On whether he is considering not taking some players to the FIFA Club World Cup to give them a rest and a fresh start to next season

“No, I don’t think so. It’s summer time there, we’ll go with the families, we will train the way we have to train, prepare the games, it’s important for the club, financially and for the prestige. We will come with people from the Academy.

“No I don’t think so, after we will see if I give extra time to arrive late to maybe the first games of the Premier League or the first games of the season, arriving a little bit later. We will see how the people arrive and how many minutes some players play, some players playing less minutes, we will see.”

On whether Academy players will be brought to boost numbers

“Yeah I think so, even for the training sessions, for some players. I have to see, I have to talk with the club, the manager for the Under-23s, or Under-18s, and see. But still it’s three months and a half until the end of the season I would say before the World Cup and after we will have time to see what happens.”

On whether he sees a point where he does get all of his players back from injury at once this season

“No, at our best, no. No, no. (What happens then?) We brought three, four players and adapt quick because we could not train much and there are a lot of things that they have to learn but we have to do. What we have done so far, we survived in the way we have done it, and we have to continue.

“But I don’t think so because we have to finish the season as best as possible, every game being aware what we are playing for our future and not for our present and do it! I’m not giving up, I’ll continue to do it, and even… it’s tough because it’s the first time for many players, myself to live this position but you have to accept it.

“The exception is what we have done before in all our careers, this is the exception. This is not normal as well, but maybe it’s less exceptional, you know? Maybe we will finish 14th or 15th in the league but we are sixth, we are not dropping like maybe other teams who have had success or a few successes in the past.

“Accept it and take the good things that still we have, because we have! Apparently it doesn’t look like but we have good things and grow from there, try to build and maybe some results will help us, thinking about what we can do differently in terms of shape, in terms of players and what they can give us, and try it.”

On whether everything that he wants them to do, which they are doing, is still not enough

“Yeah, and we cannot sustain it for 90 minutes long. (What is the solution at this point?) Change six players from the bench, maybe drop the team a little bit more, and rest with the ball. And the problem is that; we don’t rest. The second-half against Madrid when they took the ball after five minutes and started to play, play, play, we took the ball and within two seconds they scored a goal.

“We lose the ball, and after (Kylian) Mbappe made us run more, more, more, more. So we were able to do 25, 30 passes, now we are not able to do that. And the big, big successes of this team is when we were able to do 20, 25, 30 sequences of passes at the halfway for our opponents, and now we are not able to do that.

(So don’t change; insist?) “Of course you have to insist! The team is built for that! And has had success in the past for that, to have built the team in that way. But now we don’t do it because we want to score, we want to accelerate, because the people demand, ‘Ah you have to score another goal!’ First to score, we have to play. And it’s difficult to do it because the teams are so… Look tomorrow, do you think we can compete with the physicality of Newcastle?

(So what happens?) “Defend more compact, play better with the ball, and know exactly in certain moments what we have to do and sometimes you have to drop a little bit and be compact defensively, help eachother because you want to fight against Bruno (Guimaraes), fight against (Sandro) Tonali, or (Sean) Longstaff, or (Joe) Willock, or Joelinton – they are stronger, they are quicker, they are faster than our players! But always was when (Oleksandr) Zinchenko was here and when Sergio (Aguero) was here and what I said; a lot of midfield players were not physically strong.

“And what happened? We won it. Liverpool has always been stronger than us in this period, Arsenal has always been stronger than us, and what is the problem? We play. But now, before we had the confidence to play with the ball and now we suffer when we have the ball. I accept that when the opponents have the ball, I’m going to suffer, I accept it.

“But now we suffer when WE have the ball! And that’s never happened before, we were comfortable in that. And now it’s because we’re built for that, I cannot change, now I cannot go to the gym three days and put players to become stronger, faster, quicker – it’s not going to happen that! But what we have is the quality, come the ball, have the ball, pass, ball, there.

“But the situation that, we want to do it, and we struggle a little bit because they are human beings and we understand because I was a football player and last season I was the best midfielder and this season I cannot give one pass; it was me! I know, that’s why I understand the players, that’s why I want to be there, that’s why I said, ‘OK in the bad moments it’s not necessary to tell the situation’, everybody knows.

“But always the next game is an opportunity to be better, to be challenged, to make the next game and go with our confidence a little bit higher. And this is what we have to do and at the end of the season the team, myself, the club will take the decisions that we have to take, to try to avoid what happened this season in terms of injuries, in terms of many things that have happened and try to solve it, to not live a season like we have lived this season and try to be close to the seasons we have lived before.”