Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was his usual classy self talking about Newcastle United after his side ran out 1-0 winners at the Etihad on Saturday night.
It’s hard not to like Pep Guardiola. He’s the best in the game and has a wealth of talent under his control who are capable of beating any side on their day, but he never lets it go to his head. He is always respectful of the opposition in interviews and doesn’t seem to take anything for granted.
After beating Newcastle 1-0 on Saturday, Guardiola spoke to the media and admitted that he had to change his side’s style of play to cope with the new threat Newcastle brings.
Pep Guardiola was full of praise for Newcastle after Saturday
The Chronicle posted a clip on X of his interview where Guardiola spoke highly of Eddie Howe‘s side saying: “Newcastle is an exceptional team!”
“If we give an open game they will destroy us. So we had to make a lot of control with a lot of passes, that’s why I put a lot of players in the middle to have extra passes and in the right moment we will find the moment.”
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It seems like the big sides have realised that Newcastle are truly a threat with the way they play, and even if other managers are watching on trying to take ideas from Pep, there won’t be many sides who have the personnel to shut out Newcastle the way Manchester City can.
Newcastle should be buoyed by Guardiola’s praise
Much like Eddie Howe used Erik ten Hag‘s negative words to inspire Newcastle to victory over Manchester United last season, as seen in the We Are Newcastle documentary, Howe could use Guardiola’s positive words as a boost going forward.
In stark contrast, Newcastle come up against Liverpool at the weekend and Jurgen Klopp will likely be far from complimentary as he seems to have taken a massive dislike to Newcastle since we became a threat.
If he ever does compliment Newcastle you can almost see the pain in his eyes as he does it, so that, along with them doing the double over us last season should fire the lads up to destroy them on Sunday.