City are in the thick of a compelling Premier League title race with Arsenal as the two sides prepare to lock horns at the Etihad Stadium at the end of April.
A trip to Wembley is also on the horizon as we take on Sheffield United in an FA Cup semi-final but before each of those fixtures is the small matter of a two-legged Champions League quarter-final with Bayern Munich.
A significant few weeks beckon for City, but Guardiola insists he wouldn’t have it any other way.
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“Being again in the quarter-finals in Europe is a moment to enjoy,” he explained.
“In September, October, November I enjoy less. When we arrive in the last stages, fighting for the title, I’m the happiest man in the world. I love to be here.
“What’s going to happen? I don’t know. [If we’re] going to win, everything is going to be perfect. If we lose, we will be a failure.
“Nothing is going to change. The day after, [there will be a] sunrise. We will try it again in the future.
“This is the mindset we will need to do. We have done it in the past, that’s why I’m incredibly happy with the players I have. The Club we are.
“Everyone is pushing to be better and get better and better. That’s why we are here.”
The boss also believes the added jeopardy of an end-of-season title push helps to bring the best out of his players.
It’s familiar territory for a City side who retained the Premier League title with a dramatic late win over Aston Villa last season.
And Guardiola says the natural mentality shift that comes in the final furlongs of the campaign helps raise performance levels.
“Yeah, we had that feeling, we know that feeling, I said many times. We lose a game, we lose the Premier League.
“Playing with that on top of us and in September and October you cannot have that feeling.
“You say: ‘okay, we can drop points or whatever’, and after you find seasons like Liverpool were unstoppable and now like Arsenal are unstoppable. They make a lot of points.
“Now, I have the feeling and that everyone knows that if we lose or drop today points here, Leicester or, of course, Arsenal, we have no chance.
“Still, we are there. [There are] Many games to play. What’s important is we are still alive in three competitions.
“I like it, you go to war thinking ‘if we beat Leicester we are still alive’. ‘If we win against Arsenal we are still alive.’
“Going there thinking: ‘nothing to do’, it gets worse.”
