Pep Guardiola makes NBA comparison to Manchester City’s fixture demands as Premier League title prediction made

Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola has made a prediction regarding the points required to win the Premier League title this season.

The latest comments from the Etihad Stadium head coach come after his side fell to their first league defeat of the season, and their second consecutive defeat across competitions over the last few days.

Manchester City’s unbeaten start to the campaign was first brought to an end at the hands of Tottenham in the Carabao Cup fourth round, before another 2-1 loss would follow on the south coast against Bournemouth.

The challenging results and performances also come at a time when Manchester City are battling a number of high-profile injury absentees from their first-team squad, with the situation not made too much better at the Vitality Stadium.

Speaking after City’s 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon, Pep Guardiola admitted that this season could see a lower points tally worthy of winning the Premier League title, such are the strains on playing squads through fixture schedules.

“If we would have had five more days to recover and prepare, maybe we would have been better, or maybe not, who knows?

“But I don’t want to put now for the calendar, the argument for the calendar, for many things during the season when we were winning not looks like now because we lost a game. The reality; they won, congratulate them,” Guardiola said.

The Manchester City manager continued, “The reality we are living now we lived in the past, the previous seasons, playing a lot, a lot of games. You know that? Maybe we go to the World Cup, arriving in the last stages of competitions and we’re going to play almost 70 games!

“70 games is like NBA, but in the NBA they have four months holidays, and we have three weeks! Because it’s not this season, it’s come from previous season, and the previous season, and the previous season.

“And that happens and you have injuries for a long time, it didn’t happen before, some of them it happened before. But it’s inevitable, it’s normal, it’s normal that it’s going to happen that. Just handle it and be perfect how many I would say, how many training sessions you have to do to arrive as much as well as possible to the game.

“Our physical condition will get to play in games, games, and games, this is what it is because we cannot do anything, we are not practice. But it’s the same like previous seasons, but arrives a moment when you win a lot and everything was the players said, there are moments they said, ‘Wow’, the body is the body!

“And we have to accept it and handle it the best way and learn from today and keep going.”

The fixture schedule remains unrelenting for City heading into another week, as they travel to face Sporting CP in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday night, before returning to the south coast on Saturday for a top-flight clash against Brighton & Hove Albion.