Pep Guardiola-coached Manchester City fell one victory shy of breaking the longest winning run in the major European leagues, recorded by Bayern Munich under him in 2014, when his side played a 0-0 draw against Crystal Palace in the 21st round of the English Premier League (EPL) football championship on Sunday.
Reacting to the outcome, Guardiola said during the post-match press conference that it was normal in football. “We are going to lose games as players will get tired. We have problems with [Benjamin] Mendy and other players, we just have to recover well and remain mentally strong. That is normal in football, now we set a record in Premier League but the next one we will try to beat. There are lots of games to play,” he said, according to www.mancity.com.
Informing about the injuries to his players, Guardiola said Gabriel Jesus was likely to be missing for between one and two months after he suffered an injury in the 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace. However, he said that injury to Belgian Kevin De Bruyne wasn’t as bad as perhaps was initially feared but he was unlikely to play against Watford in two days’ time.
“Hopefully he [Gabriel Jesus] will be one month, maybe two months he will be out,” he said. “With Kevin we have been lucky in the past with what has happened from the same actions. I don’t know what will happen in the future. He may not be ready for Watford in a few days.”
Meanwhile, goalkeeper Ederson, who was the hero, saving a late penalty to maintain City’s unbeaten run, said he was proud of Manchester City’s performance against Crystal Palace.
“It was crunch time at the end of the game, so I knew how important it was. Obviously I’m very pleased to save the penalty and we then launched a counter-attack but, unfortunately, we could finalise it. We must congratulate the team,” he said, according to the official website of Manchester City.