Pep Guardiola took the gloves off in his pre-Manchester Derby press conference as he doubled down on claims his Manchester City side are up for the fight.
The reigning Premier League champions have looked a shadow of themselves in recent weeks and have mustered up just one victory in the last 10 matches.
Tuesday night’s defeat away to Juventus was their seventh during that time, with rivals Manchester United on the horizon this weekend.
Naturally, questions about the squad and the manager’s desire to win a fifth straight Premier League title in a row have been raised in the midst of City’s current slump.
No team in English football history had won four league titles consecutively before Guardiola and co. achieved just that last season, but the Catalan coach is adamant his team are still pulling in the same direction.
Speaking on Friday afternoon, Guardiola said: « What I feel right now is like I felt in the last three weeks, one month, in every press conference… I’m really pleased of the way we played, and I have a certain authority from my career and the titles we won that I know definitely when we are playing good or not good.
« We have to shoot more, yeah, we have to defend better, yeah, we have to avoid mistakes, yeah, in both sides, yeah. But the game is there. »
But it was a question from a reporter that appeared to get his back up a tad, with Guardiola keen to reiterate he’s trying his best to stop the dismal run of results.
When quizzed on whether he’s able to ‘do more’, Guardiola replied: « Do you do your best when you write the article in this press conference? Yeah, I’m pretty sure of that.
« I don’t know how many people read what you write. But you want to do your best, I want to do my best. »
New United boss Ruben Amorim was the third of seven managers to have beaten Guardiola this season when his now former Sporting side turned City over in the Portuguese capital.
But, even though his side lost 4-1, Guardiola insists he’s keen to see a similar performance from his team on Sunday.
Guardiola stated: « I would like to play the game we played in Lisbon on Sunday [against Manchester United], believe me! The way we played in Lisboa, I would like to play on Sunday. I don’t know if we will be able to do it because for many reasons, but we will see. »
Kick-off in the first Manchester Derby of the season comes at 4:30pm from the Etihad Stadium.
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