Pep Guardiola believes that his players who competed in the World Cup in Qatar will be in better physical shape than those who did not represent their respective nations in the tournament.
Manchester City had the most players of any Premier League club competing in the Middle East and although the Spaniard recently claimed he had ‘no players’ for tonight’s League Cup clash with Liverpool, he was contradicted a bit with his last statement.
“I had the feeling that the players in the World Cup are in better condition than the players who are here, Sergio, Cole, Riyad, Erling, they get lost a bit, the players who didn’t go lack rhythm.” said the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager (via Liverpool World). “Those who come have competed and trained every day, they keep up and we have had vacations.
“Step by step people return, today six players return. First time, we’re glad they’re back, overall they play great. They play a unique experience. They try to come back as soon as possible. He works for the team and maybe in four years they will have another experience”.
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Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Kyle Walker and John Stones were some of City’s stars who competed in the World Cup, but they’ve had more than enough time to recover and return to club training to ensure they’re available this evening. .
It seems Guardiola enjoys playing mind games: after spending billions strengthening his options and ultimately signing the players he wants, he somehow still finds a way to complain about his squad and the players he has available.
Meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp will feature the likes of Mo Salah, Darwin Nunez and Bobby Firmino at the Etihad, while Netherlands captain Virgil van Dijk is expected to rest as we begin our League Cup defence.
We expect a good performance so that the second half of our campaign gets off to a perfect start.
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