Embargoed Section: Pep Guardiola’s pre-Brighton press conference part two

It’s time for part two of Pep Guardiola’s pre-Brighton discussion with the media from Tuesday afternoon.

Manchester City will look to close off their 2022/23 Premier League campaign in style in their two remaining top-flight matches, as they travel south to take on Brighton & Hove Albion on Wednesday night, before completing the season at Brentford on Sunday afternoon.

The contest between City and the Seagulls comes just days after a jubilant weekend for the two clubs, as Pep Guardiola and his players celebrated their third consecutive English top-flight title, while Brighton confirmed their place in the UEFA Europa League next season.

In part two of Pep Guardiola’s pre-Brighton press conference, the Manchester City boss discussed the Premier League charges that continue to hang over the Etihad Stadium, the challenge of Inter in the Champions League final, and how City have adapted to Erling Haaland.

Here is every word from the embargoed section of Pep Guardiola’s pre-Brighton press conference at the City Football Academy from Tuesday afternoon!

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On whether the treble at Barcelona can help him as a coach

“I forgot it, it’s a long time ago. (Come on now…) I forgot it! I don’t remember what we did. Always I remember how excited we were, in the first season, of course. Cup first, La Liga, and after the Champions League final against United. I think we were incredibly excited, happy, and prepare game by game. I think it’s a good way to do it now.”

On whether he would consider his work at City done if they won the treble

“Right now, I’m not thinking of leaving. But, who knows? But I’m not thinking… I would like to continue next season here, dependant of the results. I would like it. But I don’t know what’s going to feel, winning or losing the two titles we have ahead of us. My feeling is I have a contract and always when I sign I want to respect the club.”

On whether the lack of demand to win the Champions League makes it easier to work at City

“Here it is easier because the environment is easier. The demands are high, I cannot deny. But here the environment, off the pitch, our life as a manager, is more comfortable. It’s just to talk about, I don’t know, Carlo (Ancelotti) or Julien Lopetegui have been in Spain or other countries, they come here, maybe Roberto De Zerbi could explain.

“But all the managers here that have been in other countries, but especially in Spain, Italy, off the pitch is so… I’m not saying better or worse, I’m not saying that, but the noise is, ‘Oh my god!’ Here when you win you are a good player, manager, and when you lose you are a bad manager. But after, you go home, you prepare the next game, it’s more comfortable. Our life is better.”

On whether two poor performances against Brighton/Brentford would make it more difficult to beat United/Inter

“I don’t think so. It would be better to maintain our tone. I’m not talking about winning or losing, I want to see our tone is there. We cannot play like, ‘I won (and happy)’. After that, against these two teams, if we are not ready we will suffer a lot. After it will be a problem. But if we maintain the tone, and they beat us, it can happen. It can be understandable because they play against Man City, the winners in the last years in the Premier League, they want to show who we are, that’s normal.

“Our players know that feeling that we’re going to play against Brighton and Brentford at that point. In that terms we are (down). Because the target for the Premier League is done, but sometimes I said you cannot drop much, otherwise it will be more difficult because the demanding FA Cup final against United will be really, really difficult. And I start to watch a little bit, some minutes from Inter Milan, and I’m really impressed. Really impressed with what they do; the body language that they have, and many, many things…

“It’s not a casualty. Three (Italian) teams are in the final of the Champions League, final of the Europa League, and Conference League, and in the semi-finals they played more. They are there. I know because I played there and I know the mentality that they have, Italian teams, in the finals. Two decades ago, the Italian league was the best league in the world. Everyone wanted to go there; managers, players want to go there to play. It still remains how many World Cups they won already. They are in this mentality.

“I said right after, to play a final against an Italian team always is really, really complicated. I saw a little bit already, I call some friends that live in Italy, (to ask) how they are, and all the people tell me, ‘Be alert’. And it’s not necessary to tell me because I felt it when I saw already some minutes, and some games.”

On how he feels his teams over the years at City have changed in terms of what they can do

“In the fundamentals, anything. It’s the same. The way we conduct, the same we try to play. When we’re different is because we want to play with Haaland, or play with Sergio (Aguero) it’s completely different, or play with Haaland and when you play with Bernardo Silva false-nine it’s completely different. When we have Riyad Mahrez and Jack Grealish on the sides, or play with Raheem (Sterling) and Leroy (Sane) it’s completely different.

“The main difference in the way you attack or play is the quality, the skills of your players. This is, at the end, the tactics. But the fundamentals – the high-pressing when you see the first year and now, it’s the same. It doesn’t matter if you do it four against four, or we allow them to go to the right and after go to left, or we play on the goal-kicks man-to-man, or we let them make the first pass; the little details depends on the quality of the opponent.

“But I don’t remember one game, like I didn’t say to my players, ‘When they have the ball, go to press them to regain the ball’. I don’t remember one day that we tried to make the build-up as best as possible. The team for example tomorrow, I guess Brighton is going to play man-to-man; they’ve done it at Anfield, they’ve done it against United, and everywhere man-to-man. So try to adapt. When they don’t do man-to-man and they drop, our build-up is different. But our fundamentals are completely the same from day one until now.”

On what he’s had to adapt to maintain control, and have the best of Erling Haaland too

“A little bit but I played with Lewandowski in Bayern Munich, I played in the first year (at Barcelona) with Samuel Eto’o as a striker, with Sergio (Aguero) for example – so I played with a proper, proper striker with incredible quality to score goals. I would say adapt more our process in build-up, than Erling Haaland, Lewandowski, or the other one, this is a little bit. But not much. Having these types of players, you have to use them.

“When you have Lewandowski, Sergio, Eto’o, Gabriel (Jesus), now Erling, Julian (Alvarez), you have to play to give him balls in the box, give him because they have the quality. I have to admit, at the beginning of the season, maybe for our process, we play without (knowing) we have Erling there, and we didn’t look at him. Always I said to him, ‘The first action, look at him where they are, and after, you decide’.

“When Madrid, for example, and you have two or three players, you don’t have to pass the ball there. But you have to know that he’s there, and step by step, every time we play, we have to take a look where he is, where is Julian, because at the end when you have these players in the box, it will be a little bit insane if we cannot use him. You have to.”

On how that process is

“You show them videos, look. He was alone? Yeah. Did you look at him? No. He’s alone? Yeah. Did you look? No. So next time, I have the ball, maybe I will take a look. And after, you decide if you pass the ball or not.”

On whether they’re better at it now

“A little better, yeah. Of course, he’s more involved. If you don’t pass the ball, you don’t score, how many goals has he scored? 52. He will not score. And in the beginning, we struggled a little bit. But it’s normal, what I said in the beginning, is he going to adapt? Of course he’s going to adapt. It’s a question of time. We don’t look at him? Yeah, we will look at him. We play games. How will we improve? Play games, and after you will see what happened, and you try to improve.”

On whether you ever get tired of winning

“Errrrr, no.”

On what he is like in other sports he plays; golf – do you have to win as well

“In golf no, because I’m really bad. My expectations are not good to play golf. No, no, no. Once we are here, tomorrow we are going to play, but it is natural for all the managers and all the football players in the Premier League, Championship, League One – invite me, introduce me, take a coffee, if you introduce me to a manager when he plays a game he doesn’t want to win… I’m scared to lose. I don’t want to be criticised, I want respect from my players. What we work (on), what we say, what we do, it can happen to win.”

On whether the enjoyment ever diminishes

“Nope. Once we are here… What I’m pretty sure of is I accept my defeats because all the time I accept that the opponents can beat us. It can be better. When the people say, ‘Ah you fail, you lost’, or whatever, it’s like I recognised the other ones are shit (shrugs). Why I fail? The others can be good. They can beat me. They can beat us. It’s like saying, ‘Oh I have to win all the time, all the titles’. What is that? The others that play, I don’t play alone, I play with the other ones, and the other ones play good.

“If they beat us it’s because they deserve it, it’s because they prepare, they see the programmes, they see the images, and a lot of incredibly good staff behind the scenes. And when we are there, do it. The people are going to say now that, ‘Ah next season, it’s going to come better, just so Manchester City can win the Premier League’. Stupid comments. And the stupid comments, the only problem is they are stupid comments in your head. As much as you are not in your head when the people say, ‘Ah it’s easy for Man City to win next season the Premier League’, it’s because you accept these stupid comments are in your head. But as much as you are not in your head, remain stupid comments. This is the reality. The next season will be tougher, because all the clubs want to beat us.

“They don’t like to see us all the time win, win, win, win. They want to beat you. But that is the challenge. I said many times this year, next year during one year we defend our crown. Our title belongs to us for only one year. We work, with our coach, for the cities in the UK, defending our crown. If they want it, they have to do better than us. But if that happens, it’s part of sport, we are going to congratulate them. Do your best, this is what they have to do.

“Go to the finals doing your best. United can beat us? Yeah. Inter can beat us? Absolutely. They have three Champions Leagues, we don’t have any. They can beat us, absolutely. But you have to try to do our best to try to avoid it. But if this happens, it happens.”

On whether he will be here next season

“I will stay here next season, yeah. I will stay next season with 100 breaches for the Premier League against us, don’t worry. We will be there.”

On whether he could see another period of three or four years

“No, no, no don’t talk about that. It’s enough these two. Yeah (it’s just one season at a time). What I would like is the Premier League could, or the judges, make (a decision) as soon as possible. Because if we’ve done something wrong, everybody will know it. And if we are like we believe we are, like we have done as a club for many years in the right way, and the people start to stop sometimes to talk about that.

“We would love it tomorrow! This afternoon better than tomorrow! We would love it. Hopefully they are not so busy, and the judges can see it and listen to both sides, and at the end decide what is the best because at the end I know fairly what we won, we won on the pitch because we deserve it. That I don’t have any doubts.”

On whether it’s a frustrating wait

“We accept it’s there. If it happened, it happened. It happened with UEFA, and after we decided what happened. Now it’s the Premier League. So… let’s go! Come on! 24 hours, sit down, talk, both sides, lawyers present. Don’t wait one year, two years. Why don’t we do it quickly! Come on, as soon as possible, for the benefit of everyone!

“But I know there are many, many cases around the world for many injustices and affairs, and maybe they are so busy, but hopefully we can do it as soon as possible. No one, not even of course of us because we want to defend our principles. And if the people have doubts, okay, let’s do it as soon as possible, please. This is, we’d love it.”