‘We had 40 bad days in eight years’

Pep Guardiola says Manchester City’s poor form needs to 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 however saw a run of one win in 11 matches as City fell to fifth in the table, below Nottingham Forest and two points ahead of Villa.

Guardiola said: “I deal with the good moments, I deal with the bad moments. I have bad in my career as a manager but we were able to come back and now it takes more time.

“I get experience with this. I had 40 days of bad days in terms of results, that’s the truth compared to eight years which is much better. There were 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. This 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) 20 December 2024

“I’m 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 managed to mount another top four challenge with an impressive Champions League campaign that saw wins over Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig.

Guardiola says their success under Unai Emery has not come as a surprise.

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “The best, an excellent manager. (They had good success) qualifying for the Champions League and the results in the Champions League speak for themselves.

“They are managing it well because when I was at many clubs managing both competitions, they went very well.”