Manchester: Pep Guardiola will target the quadruple again next season with Manchester City despite the disappointment of this week’s Champions League exit against Tottenham.
Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino and Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp — Guardiola’s closest challenger for the Premier League title — have both advanced to the semifinals of Europe’s leading club competition.
But, unlike Guardiola, that duo have placed far less emphasis on the domestic cup competitions, fielding weakened sides in the early rounds of the League Cup and FA Cup.
By contrast Guardiola, in contrast, has always fielded full, or near-full, strength teams, leaving him open to accusations fatigue is hampering his team in the season’s closing stages.
Nevertheless the City manager, who won the League Cup against Chelsea and faces an FA Cup final date with Watford next month, is adamant he would never deliberately attempt to be knocked out of a competition.
“I don’t understand in my profession, it is not to say I don’t want to win, I don’t understand that,” said Guardiola.”If I lose it’s because the opponent beat me or beat us. I’m not going to drop any competitions because maybe in the future it will be better.”
The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss whose City side, thanks to a quirk of the fixture list next play Tottenham again in the Premier League Saturday, added: “Who knows what’s going to happen in the future? The present is this game and I will try.”
“I will dream next season of fighting for the four titles, that’s my dream,” he added.
AFP