‘If you grow up, always you will be there’ – Guardiola on Manchester City’s improvement this season and the pressure of competing with Arsenal
‘If you grow up, always you will be there’ – Guardiola on Manchester City’s improvement this season and the pressure of competing with Arsenal Pep Guardiola says the way his Manchester City team have grown up this season bodes well for the future, whatever happens on Sunday against Arsenal. City could narrow the gap to league leaders Arsenal to three points by winning on Sunday , and also have a game in hand on the Gunners. Ahead of the game, Guardiola drew comparisons between this season and his first at the club, when they finished third but went on to win the title the next season.
“They know exactly what they have to do,” the City boss said. “But the rest, I think we have been really, really good, and we’ve been a team like I felt we grew up. “We are getting better, getting better and that is what, you know, for the next season, will be good at the end.
“As I said, the first Premier League was the second season. It would not be possible without how much we grew up during the first season while we didn’t win a title. “But we finished third and in many, many things we were really, really good and we learned a lot.
“The process is nice. So I said many times, I don’t care in October if we are really, really good. “It’s arrived in the last month.
It has been much, much better than October. So this is the real point in the team in the long, long term. “When I said in the last games in the Champions League, in FA Cup, in Carabao Cup, one game, two games, the referees are massively important, massively.