Pep Guardiola has revealed he expects Manchester City to suffer at the start of their Premier League title defence due to the absence of many of their star names during pre-season.
The Cityzens have taken a youthful squad over to the United States for their pre-season tour, with the likes of Rodri, Phil Foden and Kyle Walker among those who have not yet returned from their excursions at Euro 2024.
City have often started slowly by their own standards before racing ahead of rivals like Arsenal and Liverpool to claim title glory and Guardiola has admitted he thinks it could be a similar story in 2024/25.
However, the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss also hit out at organisers at FIFA and UEFA for overloading players with too many matches in recent years.
He said: “We will arrive late but not [just] against Manchester United, against Chelsea and Ipswich too.
“We will be late. It’s about trying not to drop many points, try to compete well. We don’t have players because they have to rest.
“If the big bosses and all the institutions like FIFA, UEFA and the Premier League don’t think about the players then the managers have to think about them, otherwise they will die. It’s too much. That’s why three weeks or one month is necessary, but the competition is there and you have to adapt.”
Clubs around Europe have filed a lawsuit against the top football organisers, describing the current international match calendar as “saturated” and “unsustainable”.
Guardiola and City are currently touring the US / Drew Hallowell/GettyImages
Pointing to player fatigue, Guardiola added: “There’s no solution, there will not be a solution because there is no intention to find a solution.
“The clubs have to travel to show our brand around the world, to let other continents and places see our players, and we have to adapt.
“We would like to have had proper preparation but it’s impossible because national teams deserve to play and every institution like FIFA and UEFA and local competitions want to defend their product and make games.
“We have a good squad when everybody comes back. We have three, four, five interesting (young) players just in case we need them. We will do what we have done in the previous seasons when we have had success having the same calendar as this year
