“In nine years it’s never happened” – Pep Guardiola reveals how Manchester City will tackle ‘abnormal’ upcoming schedule | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola continues to face fresh challenges as Manchester City manager despite his vast array of successes and experiences with the club since his arrival in 2016.

The reigning Premier League champions are enduring what is arguably their worst season since Guardiola arrived at the Etihad Stadium, conceding goals with ease and dropping levels below the standards set by themselves in recent seasons.

As part of that drop in form, City first exited the Carabao Cup at the fourth round stage via defeat to Tottenham, before a shocking down-turn in results largely released their grip of the Premier League title by the end of December.

The UEFA Champions League would then exit the picture for this season courtesy of a 6-3 aggregate defeat to Real Madrid in a last-16 play-off tie between the two clubs, leaving them with an FA cup pursuit to focus on alongside their top-flight top-four ambitions.

Speaking during a recent press conference, the Manchester City boss was quizzed on how he and his coaching staff would tackle the remainder of the season with more rest available to his players in midweeks.

“Yeah, it’s quite new for us. I’d say in nine years it’s never happened,” Guardiola said.

“That means we’re not doing well, but yes, we’re going to take this time off to refresh, because always I believe in this competition – people don’t believe it – but it’s about quality, not quantity.”

Guardiola continued, “And to refresh and we are going to make four good training sessions to prepare our important, really, really important game against (Nottingham) Forest.

“And again, a long week before Brighton, after it’s an international break and after FA Cup (quarter-final).

“Yeah, we’re going to refresh things, practice things, and lift the rhythm, like normally when you cannot train because we play every three or four days, you cannot increase that.

“And refresh things that we cannot do that we have to do better.”

Pep Guardiola will return to media duties after a long week without action on Friday afternoon ahead of Manchester City’s away trip to face Nottingham Forest in the early Saturday lunchtime kick-off slot at the City Ground.

Having been granted a few days off in light of the club’s 3-1 win over Plymouth Argyle, the full squad returned to training on Tuesday afternoon, with all of Nathan Ake, John Stones, Manuel Akanji, and Rodri absent from the group session.