Pep Guardiola crying about advantage Newcastle United | OneFootball

It is less than two months since Pep Guardiola completed his most successful season ever with Manchester City, so far.

On 10 June 2023, Man City finally winning the Champions League with a 1-0 win over Inter Milan.

This to go with their comeback Premier League title after Arsenal threw it away, as well as the FA Cup final defeat of Man Utd.

However, not all smiles ahead of the new season, with Pep Guardiola crying already about himself and his team supposedly being badly done to, the Man City boss in particular referencing a perceived advantage Newcastle United will have in the upcoming clash.

Pep Guardiola not happy…:

“We finish an incredibly stressful season, the players then went to their national teams and had maybe not even three weeks off.

“We came back and trained a little in Manchester, then travelled to Asia and could not train there, because it is impossible to train there.

“We played a decent game against Bayern and the other two matches, and after a few days, incredible I saw that the guys are still here, so we cannot complain.

“We have to recover well and prepare well for the game against Burnley, then travel to Athens to play at 10pm, finish at 2, then come back on Friday and after…

“Thank you! Play on Saturday against Newcastle at home.”

Pep Guardiola not happy about the lack of preparation time and travel, between playing in the Super Cup (Champions League winners v Europa League winners) in Athens on the Wednesday night. Greece is two hours ahead of UK time, so the game in Athens kicking off at 10pm local (Athens) time in order to suit TV / viewing times in the likes of England (8pm) and Spain (9pm).

Man City’s schedule is away at Burnley this Friday night (11 August) at 8pm in the Premier League, then that match in Athens 10pm (Greek time) on Wednesday (16 August), before Newcastle at the Etihad 8pm on Saturday 19 August.

In contrast, Newcastle United are home to Villa 5.30pm this Saturday 12 August before a full week ahead to prepare for Man City the following Saturday night.

It might be wishful thinking but I don’t think it is in any way guaranteed that Man City get anywhere close to last season’s massive success. They also have the club World Cup to deal with in December, to be played in Saudi Arabia.

They have signed Kovacic and Gvardiol but at the same time have lost two influential attacking players who chose to leave – Mahrez and Gundogan.

There was no getting away from the fact that Newcastle United were handed by far the toughest opening schedule of any club towards the top end, having to play a quartet of teams (Villa, Man City, Liverpool, Brighton) who finished top seven last season, in the opening four matches.

However, as they say, you have to play everybody home and away at some point, so just maybe, this could work in Newcastle’s favour IF we can pick up more points than expected, including potentially against Pep Guardiola and Man City.

Whilst Newcastle United appear to have had a pretty perfect pre-season, with both training and matches – winning five, drawing two and losing none. Maybe Man City not finding things quite so smooth

Pep Guardiola mentioning the problems of going to train and play in Asia pre-season, Man City losing 2-1 to Atletico Madrid in Seoul and then returning to lose to Arsenal at Wembley in the Community Shield. Pep Guardiola not happy about that either, blaming everybody but himself and his team, as Man City threw it away late on.

Whatever is the case, it will be tough for Newcastle United to get anything at the Etihad, however, when Eddie Howe is reading Pep Guardiola crying on about how unfair everything is, it certainly won’t be a negative for him as the NUFC boss will have that week to prepare after this Villa challenge on Saturday.