9 months ago
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Pep Guardiola could only laugh as he responded to Gary Neville’s claim that his all-conquering Man City team are ‘boring’ to watch.
The Manchester United legend made the claim on his popular ‘Overlap’ podcast alongside Roy Keane, Ian Wright and Jamie Carragher - and he probably didn’t think it would lead to a response from the man himself.
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Speaking to his fellow former Premier League icons, Neville said: “You just can’t watch City – it’s almost like they’ve ruined it a little bit.
“To call City boring would be wrong, because the football they play is outstanding, but I actually thought they were boring – I found it difficult to watch them.”
Any football fan can see what the ex-defender was getting at. Man City are so good, so disciplined in all areas of the pitch, so neat and tidy, so clinical and just so brilliant that it perhaps takes some of the excitement out of watching them.
But Guardiola has insisted that while his team makes it look easy, it most certainly is not and is the product of an incredible amount of work behind the scenes from the entire Man City operation.
And while his initial response when told about Neville’s comments was a huff of breath and a wry smile, he only sees it as a great compliment to his and his players’ efforts.
“Well, thank you for the compliment,” Guardiola told journalists at his press conference on Friday.
“It’s fine, what can I say?
“Everything is so difficult in football, so difficult, you have to do many things to try to win games and to do that over many, many years. So what this group of players has done for many years and in this season as well, it’s admirable.
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“So hats off to my players, it’s unbelievable when you’re so consistent, the way they take our opponents seriously and how good they are.
“I had the same opinion before we played Copenhagen [a 3-1 win away from home]. It’s really incredibly difficult to attack if you are not perfect or really good in many aspects of the game.
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“We cannot achieve what we did achieve this week without that, and we still have a game to play here [the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie] that we will take seriously.
“That’s all I can say to my players, so hopefully we can continue in that way.”
Guardiola was then asked if he feels his players aren’t given enough credit for their achievements since his arrival as Man City manager, where they collected five Premier League titles - including the last three in a row - two FA Cups, four Carabao Cups, the Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup.
But the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach said: “Of course we have credit, we are admired, I’m pretty sure of that.
“The people in the football world know how difficult it is being six or seven years there and there again, one week, another one, in all competitions.”
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And he concluded with a message to the journalists in the room, and perhaps Neville too, that Guardiola promised they will stick with them in years to come - and perhaps change the way we all look at this City team.
The boss said: “I’m going to tell you something in the future you will not forget.
“It looks easy, but it’s not. You will remember that sentence. It looks easy, but it is not.”
That’s you told, Gary!
