Pep Guardiola interview: Manager says Manchester City need this losing period and expects suffering to continue

For probably the first time in his managerial career, Pep Guardiola is a manager under pressure.

The Manchester City boss lost five matches in a row for the first time in his career and then it arguably got worse – as City were leading 3-0 against Feyenoord 75 minutes into their Champions League match and ended up drawing 3-3.

And it doesn’t get any easier. Right now, there is no harder challenge in Europe than going to face Liverpool at Anfield. That is what awaits Guardiola and City on Sunday, live on Sky Sports with kick-off at 4pm.

Now, in an extraordinary interview with Sky Sports’ Pat Davidson before the trip to Anfield, Guardiola has opened up about his thought processes during this losing run.

From claiming City need this losing run for their future success, to saying his players are not strong or stable enough to deal with setbacks, see below for a transcript of the interview:

Pep, you’ve said a few times now: ‘this too shall pass’. How important is it to remember that?

I felt it when we won four Premier League in a row, not just now. I felt even in those moments that: ‘this too shall pass’. I never thought that when we were winning and winning that it would be eternal. That the moment will come: this too shall pass.

You have been talking about it being ‘on my shoulders, on my responsibility’. Does it feel like a big burden? The feeling of: how is this great manager going to change this?

You cannot imagine how much I get paid! It comes with my salary. If I don’t want that pressure, I resign, go home and I don’t have this weight on my shoulders. All the managers have that.

You don’t want to be criticised? It’s unfair? My friend, it is what it is. If you don’t win, the people will laugh at you, people will take the p*** of you. Even more for the fact that we won a lot.

If you don’t want it? Go home. The players must be guided, I am responsible for that. But I want to do it. The moment I feel: don’t follow me, it’s over or tired? After that I’ll go home.

When you’re in a bad run, are you thinking every second: how do I solve this? What am I going to do? And what’s that like?

Definitely. It’s not nice because you always have doubts afterwards. But at the end when you think a lot about what works, it comes back to the principles. You go back to the most simple thing possible.

I had the feeling the tactics is not the big issue. When you’re winning 3-0 on 75 minutes and then it’s 3-3, it’s not that.

For us watching from the outside, we’re waiting to see what you’re going to do. Is Pep going to turn up and Erling Haaland and Kevin de Bruyne are wing-backs? And you’re going to do something no one has thought of before and it fixes everything?

If I believe that Kevin de Bruyne could be a wing-back, I would do it! I would praise or analyse or judge how much over-thinking I was in that moment, or how stupid I was – because I believe in that moment that was the best, because I know my players.

Listen, I played the final of the Champions League against Chelsea without Rodri. What have you done Pep? Why didn’t you play him? But do you remember how Rodri was in that moment? He was not playing bad, beyond in that moment.

Do you think Rodri would not play now? Of course he would play. But I’m getting paid for taking those decisions. But in that moment I thought: I need these certain players, more control, more passes, Gundogan did more than him.

So you learn from your mistakes in good or bad things. But in that, I never thought I was special because we win. Now I don’t feel it’s not going well or the team’s not good enough. The group is exceptional, they are beyond good and they showed a few months ago they were able to do it.

The problem, the biggest, biggest problem, looks like an excuse. When you give an argument when you’re not winning, it looks like an excuse. We had a lot, a lot of important, important players injured and with that, it’s more difficult.

The reason why? The calendar for the last eight, nine years, winning everything, being in the last stages of the competition, the moment arrives where the body – not the player – the body said it’s enough. I need to rest. It cannot sustain it anymore.

Every time we won the second or the third Premier League, we fell down. When we won the treble, the next season the same. We were always there.

This month, in November, we go down. And this month we would be better – with Ruben Dias fit, with John Stones fit. I don’t think of Rodri, but with Mateo Kovacic fit, with Kevin De Bruyne fit. But fit in terms of fit. We have been a better team but it is what it is and we have to do it.

I have listened to your interviews from the last few days: the word you used most is stable. ‘We’re not stable.’ What do you mean by not being stable?

How you are in your thoughts when the opponent punches you in the face. That’s being stable.

So how do you get that back?

Believe that you have to stay in the game. Don’t have negative thoughts when you concede the 3-1 against Feyenoord. Of course they will be there, but it’s how long it stays there. This is the difference.

The biggest players have bad thoughts – I’m going to lose that point in tennis, I’m going to make a bad shot in golf. How long it’s there, that’s the biggest. And right now, we are not strong enough in those terms.

Can you share a little bit of what’s going through your mind about what your team needs from you?

They have to feel they are really, really good. That’s the most important thing. I’ve told them all the time, since a long time ago, that they are exceptional. Because truly, truly I believe it. They are at an exceptional club and I’m sorry to tell them they have an exceptional manager. And do it, take it as life, have a big smile and do it.

I don’t want, in this position, to go: the reason why is for this action or this action. You’re 3-0 up? Score six! Defend better! It’s easy to do that, I’ve never done it and as a manager I’ll never do it.

I know the tendency for everyone – in the media, but I don’t care, I’m sorry – to internally say: ‘it’s going well, I want to do well’.’ But when you don’t: ‘blame myself? I blame another one.’ It’s natural. The ego everyone has doesn’t want to be touched.

Everyone is responsible for that because they feel the aggression of: ‘maybe I’m the reason why we’re losing’. And everybody avoids that and starts to blame someone else. That is the beginning of something that is not good.

We lose games for many reasons, not you or me. We will win games for many reasons, not for you or me. So feel that we are in a good team, we are in a good club, we have exceptional players – that’s what we have to do.

I sense you’re more positive about your players now. You’re more calm – is that a conscious effort?

If we lose a game and I go to the press conference and I say: ‘we lose because of that player, or that player, or that player’, what do I win? They know they made a mistake in front of the world.

I blame them or say my players are not good enough? Because that means I’m good? Maybe they’ll start thinking that I’m not good. I don’t win anything, because they want to do it well.

In that moment, I said: ‘we know it, try to avoid it, learn from that, that’s the most important thing, and move forward’.

I have never supported in my life, when on the sofa watching the post-match interviews of my colleagues, when they said: ‘we lost for this player, for this player and these players have levels to play in the club’.

I don’t know how I could go into the locker room the day after and look at the players eyes and not go: ‘he has a mother and a father and the boys try to do it well’.

As much as you try to do well in training, they know I am completely away with them and they will be in trouble when they come here to be on holidays.

If they just come to: ‘I don’t care and don’t want to improve’, they won’t have any defence and in that moment they are out of me. They cannot. But as long as they have commitment, I know they try. And in the end, periods in life are like this. The universe sometimes says: you have to win.

I always use this as an example: Romelu Lukaku, two minutes to go in the final of the Champions League. In the six-yard box in the middle with a header. He shoots into the knee of Ederson. And we won the Champions League. What a legend Pep is! What a team, personality, character!

And then the year before we lost against Real Madrid in three or four actions that you cannot imagine.

Do you know what I thought when we won the treble? It was written in the stars. We played really well that season, of course, otherwise you cannot do it – but it was written. And it happens. Sometimes, we need to live this.

I want to be honest: the club needs this period. To realise what we have done and build for the future. It’s so important. You have to lose sometimes. I don’t like it. But it will be good for the club.

But sometimes you’ve made it look easy! What is going on with this team?

But it was not easy! That is the problem. You are sitting, watching the game thinking it’s easy. It’s not! It’s an incredible effort.

Do you know the rival we beat in the last years? The best team I ever faced in my life.

Can you tell me that beating Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, Virgil Van Dijk in his prime, central defenders, Jurgen Klopp, with Anfield was easy? Come on, man. Hours and hours of thinking and work and work and work.

That’s why when you say it looks easy: we can also think about it, our club can think about it, even our players can think about it.

And there’s one way to solve that: lose. To realise how difficult this business is. That’s why you have to realise: make good decisions and come back.

I want to ask you one on Liverpool. On one hand you can look at it and go: Liverpool is the last thing we need at the moment. On the other hand, could they almost be the team that gets you out of this?

We will be back when all the players come back. We will not be back by winning at Anfield. Until those players come back, we will not be back. I’m sorry to say that.

I would love to say we are going to win at Anfield and then 20 games. But in the situation we are in, we will not be back. The only chance we come back is if John Stones is back – he is injured and he will be a long time, if Ruben Dias has come back after one month out and everyone is a bit fit again, then we will be back. To sustain it every three days, we cannot do it.

Now it’s time to suffer. Now it’s time to be there, be positive. But one result in the moment, we will not be who we are. Still we are there, we want to maintain it as long as possible.

Of course, we’re going to fight to win on Sunday. We are going to win in Anfield like we have done in all our career. But winning will not change much. The mood, five points, of course that will allow us to do that.

But knowing the reality and the team, we cannot make targets to win the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cups. It’s unnecessary when in the last six games we have not been able to win one.

So the next game is Anfield, win. And after Nottingham Forest. Then we will see what happens.

But we have done it when we were winning the Premier Leagues when in November we said: we were there. In the year we won 100 points, even when we were away from the beginning, the other teams were there.

We were many, many times behind Liverpool in the years we won the Premier League. Against Arsenal, always we were behind and not quite different from now. The problem is we had the squad, we had everyone more or less competing with each other. Now we don’t have it.

Now I tell my reflection: what do you ask for? Just give me the players back! All I want is that! The rest? I don’t care. I would love to lose the Premier League with the players.

If Liverpool win, I would shake their hands. If Arsenal win with Mikel Arteta, I would be so happy for him. Believe me, truly, honestly. But I don’t like not competing because the players I have are injured. But it is what it is. It’s life.

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