Never one to hold back from a praiseworthy assessment of a respected rival who’s put up a valiant fight, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was again a class above when he talked about Newcastle United after his side emerged 1-0 winners at the Etihad on Saturday night.
The best in the game with a wealth of talent – undoubtedly capable of beating any side on their day – under his control, Guardiola never lets the success go to his head. He is always respectful of the opposition in interviews and appears never to take anything for granted.
After a testy 1-0 victory over Newcastle 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 represented by the Newcastle side.
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.”
This subtle admission from Guardiola infers that the big sides have realized that Newcastle are a new clear and present danger with the way they mobilize themselves.
Much like Eddie Howe used Erik ten Hag’s negative words to inspire Newcastle to victory over Man Utd last season, as evidenced in the We Are Newcastle documentary, Howe could use Guardiola’s positive words as a boost going forward.
Newcastle will be up against Liverpool over the weekend and Jurgen Klopp, in stark contrast to Guardiola, would likely be far from complimentary as he seems to have taken a massive dislike to Newcastle since the latter became an obvious threat.