Guardiola: Arteta ‘knows everything about Manchester City’
Pep Guardiola has declared that Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta knows everything about Manchester City ahead of the Gunners travelling to the Etihad to take on the current champions.
Arteta was Pep’s assistant for four years at City before taking the top job at the Emirates. Guardiola has lavished praise on his protege in the past and has used his pre-match press conference to, once again, give Arteta much of the credit for Manchester City’s success. He said:
“I’m so excited to see him, one of the nicest people I ever met. It was a joy for me and for all of us to work with him. The feeling I have is he’s happy there and doing an incredible job. I’m looking forward to seeing him.”
“He knows absolutely everything of us, he was an incredibly important part of our success, he helped us to be who we were and who we are. We are delighted he will come back, especially if he is happy there. We sent a message an hour and a half ago. It was about the wine we are going to drink after the game if social distance allows!”
Guardiola questioned whether Premier League sides had been given enough time to prepare for the restart and said he was unsure of the state of his Manchester City team. He said:
“You ask me how is the team? I don’t know. We will see the level of the team and from there we will see how we will do better. We were worried with these three weeks because there is a lack of preparation, not like in Spain or Germany they have five or six.”
“We know it is not enough but it is what is. The players are training good but I don’t know their exact physical condition or how many minutes will be in the high level.”
Irrespective of whether they are in perfect shape or not, City will pose a very serious threat to Arsenal tomorrow. The hope is that Arteta will devise a game plan to exploit City’s weaknesses based on his deep knowledge of the club and pull off a victory against his former side. He can then enjoy that glass of wine with his mentor and former colleagues with a smile on his face and the satisfaction of knowing his team have restarted their campaign by sending out a statement of intent to the rest of the league.
