Pep Guardiola admits he's baffled by Man City's problem with Tottenham
Pep Guardiola admitted he cannot explain Manchester City's woeful record away to Tottenham.
City have lost on all five of their visits to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and have failed to score in any of those defeats. Former Spurs managers Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte have all condemned City to defeat in North London.
Guardiola takes his Treble winners to Spurs on Friday night in the fourth round of the FA Cup and conceded he has no idea why City have fared so badly there. “It happened at White Hart Lane, not just in this stadium,” said Guardiola.
“But they’re an exceptional side. Ever since Mauricio was manager and under all the other managers, too. They also have exceptional players. Always you think 'why are they not able to be there in the last stages, in the Champions League?"
“They were there a few years ago, but I’ve been in the Champions League for many years. Tottenham is a fantastic, historical club, the players are really good.
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“When I analyse the performance, what we create, concede, it’s the same as what happened in the home game here. We played well – but we were not able to win. It’s happened many times, but hopefully we can break it.”
City will once again be without star striker Erling Haaland, who will miss his 10th game in a row as he continues his recovery from a fractured foot. “It was a bone,” said Guardiola. “It was a little bit of a fracture of the bone and the bone is not a muscular issue that you can do a little bit of work on and come back."
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Erling Haaland is still missing through injury (Getty Images)“When you have this injury, it’s a question of time, it's six to eight weeks. The bone needs time to close, to make his procedure and now it’s at the end, it will be eight weeks now, almost two months this or next weekend, in the process.
“He feels good and now he needs time to take the rhythm and start to give him minutes when he will be fit. When he came back after two or three sessions and felt some disturbance, that’s why we were a little cautious after we waited a long time. “Now he feels good, we’ll give him three or four days and hopefully next week against Burnley he can play his first minutes.”
Kevin De Bruyne is ready to start after continuing his comeback from injury with a match-winning cameo from the bench in a 3-2 win at Newcastle, scoring an equaliser and setting up the winner. “_Yes, he’s ready,” said Guardiola, whose squad took advantage of the mid-season break to train in the warm climate of Abu Dhabi for five days. “He was ready against Newcastle as well, but we always have a process, which is the same with Erling when he comes back.”
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