With City having played a game less than most of our rivals, last Sunday’s home loss to Leicester means we are currently six points off the league leaders ahead of this weekend’s latest round of fixtures.
Given the incredible consistency and standards set by City and latterly Liverpool over the past few seasons, Guardiola was asked at his pre-match press conference ahead of Saturday’s tea-time fixture away at Leeds United whether he was concerned that his players now had little or no margin for error.
However, the boss declared he would not be deflected by talk of targets or pressure – instead he asserted that his concentration was fixed both on the trip to Elland Road and integrating a number of key players back into the squad
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“It’s the second game… we have one game less,” Guardiola asserted when asked to reflect on the potential impact of the loss to the Foxes.
“Honestly, I’m not thinking about the points you have to win or have to lose to win the title.
“I am focused on the game tomorrow, how we have to play, which players I have to select and sooner or later to give minutes to the players coming back from injury or COVID or whatever.
“Come back to training and the only concern I have is to come back to the team as best as possible.
“In the meantime, we will try to get points in the Premier League and qualify in the Cups and we go game by game.
“You have seen the schedule… we don’t have time. We have games every three days. It is what we have to do and then After that we will see.”
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Our trip across the Pennines for what will be a first Premier League encounter against Leeds in 16 years will be followed by an international break with a host of City players scattered far and wide across Europe and beyond.
However asked whether given the injuries and illnesses which have afflicted the squad over the past weeks Guardiola was tempted to ask the national managers to carefully look after his players, Guardiola was unequivocal in his response.
“International players go to international teams. I don’t expect them to look after us, they look after themselves,” the City manager added.
“Every national manager cares about their own business. They are not making decisions thinking about the clubs as they cannot do it. There are 12/13 different clubs in every selection.
“They have to think about themselves.
“And the players take care of themselves because they are mature enough.”
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