Arsene Wenger’s “Invincibles” will never be emulated.
That’s the claim by Pep Guardiola whose Manchester City side are currently doing a very good impression of an invincible team after nine wins and a draw in their first ten Premier League games this season.
And City’s 28 point haul after with a +29 goal difference even beats City’s 2011 start under Roberto Mancini which ended memorably with the Blues lifting the title on the last day of the season.
Despite this, Guardiola continues to play down any comparison with Wenger’s classic team of 2004, saying:
“The record belongs to him. We aren’t going to break it, he has to be calm. He had an exceptional team. We don’t want to break this record but we want to beat him.
“We are beatable, it’s how we will react which will decide how we become a good team and that I want to see.”
Guardiola refused to go into detail about Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez, who was a very public transfer target for City over the summer, with rumours circulating about a cut-price winter deal or a free transfer upon expiry of his Gunners contract next summer, but he did admit that a “shakeup” in the summer could be possible.
“Next season we will have to shake the team a little as well, maybe not as much as we did this season. The average age was 28, now it’s younger and we must analyse well and buy the right players.” admitted Guardiola.
One Arsenal player that Guardiola did have some words for was Mesut Ozil.
The German has been often blamed for Arsenal’s failings in recent seasons but the Catalan is fully aware of the quality of the playmaker, who orchestrated the Gunners’ demolition of Everton two weeks ago on their last trip up north.
He backed him to show his quality – after Sunday’s game – saying: “He’s always criticised when the team lose. First, in terms of quality, I enjoy him and suffer him when he was at Madrid.
“I admire him a lot. Maybe his body language doesn’t help him too much but sometimes the body language confuses opinions of the critics.
“I don’t have doubts about his qualities, but hopefully he will play a bad, bad game.”