Pep Guardiola says Manchester City’s bad run of form must be put into context as he prepares for another tough trip to take on Aston Villa.
Guardiola has guided City to the last four Premier League titles, and six of the last seven.
This season though has seen a run of one win in 11 matches as City have fallen to fifth in the league table, below Nottingham Forest and two points ahead of Villa.
Guardiola said: “I handle the good moments, I handle the bad moments. I have bad ones in my career as a manager but we were able to come back and now it takes longer.
“I take experience with that. I have had 40 days of bad days in terms of results, that is the truth when you compare to eight years which is much better. There has been eight years of incredible [results] and now we have 40-45 days of [bad results].
PEP 💬 Manuel [Akanji] and John [Stones] are back in training. That is good for us…
I don’t know yet [if they will start on Saturday]. Yesterday was their first training session. pic.twitter.com/nRdNHj134D
— Manchester City (@ManCity) December 20, 2024
“I am fine. I am a normal person with feelings like all of us. When a situation is going well we are better and when it is not going well professionally we are more [focused] on what we have to do.”
Villa finished fourth last season and have juggled another challenge at a top-four finish with an impressive Champions League campaign that has seen wins over Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig.
Guardiola says their success under Unai Emery has come as no surprise.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “Top, excellent manager. [They had good success] qualifying for the Champions League and the results in the Champions League they speak for themselves.
“They are handling it well because when I have been in many clubs handling both competitions, they have done really well.”
