Pep Guardiola is back previewing football matches for Manchester City after the international break, starting with a blockbuster clash this Saturday at the Etihad Stadium against Liverpool. Guardiola spoke on Phil Foden, Erling Haaland, Liverpool, winning the treble, and more.
Phil Foden and Erling Haaland updates:
"Phil [Foden] had surgery, and Erling [Haaland] is in recovery, we will see how he feels after the training session."
Phil Foden timescale:
"The doctor says [he should be back in] two or three weeks. We will see how he develops after his appendicitis surgery."
Erling Haaland's availability:
"We will see today and in the end the doctors and especially the players will decide: how does he feel. Yesterday I spoke with him, he feels good, but we will see what happens. Life is about risks in these stages, [sometimes] you have to take it."
"We scored a lot of goals this season, he has scored an incredible amount of goals, but in the past always we have scored a lot of goals. I had the feeling with Roberto Mancini and Pellegrini always Man City was a team who scored a lot, a lot of goals during the season, with different players, different strikers, different styles of play: scored a lot of goals, so this is what we'll try and do until the end of the season."
Plan B if Haaland is absent:
"The football is the quality of the players. Haaland has his skills, Julian has his own skills. It depends, most of the players came back yesterday, we could not do much [preperation], today a little bit. Today is the last assessment."
Liverpool:
"We know each other for many years. They remain an exceptional team. My opinion doesn't change."
"They can beat everyone, like we can beat everyone. One game is one game."
Treble is on:
"It's so difficult, okay we have this game but we have a tough, tough schedule with many games. After many, many years, we are fighting for that. We are in all competitions, that is awesome. The most important thing is we are fighting for everything, three things, that is so good. Winning is good but sustaining for ten, eleven months is so difficult. Still, we are there."
Squad goals:
"All the season we had mainly all the squad available, but at times you have periods with a lot of injuries. With this amount of games, with just eleven or twelve players it does not happen, everyone has to be involved."
Written by: @colgeogcra
Some quotes as quoted by Manchester Evening News and Manchester City.
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