Pep Guardiola spoke to the press ahead of Sunday's Premier League game against Luton Town. The Manchester City manager was asked about the team's recent form. Kevin De Bruyne's recovery from injury and Kalvin Phillips' future.
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00:00 I'm at Manchester City's media centre where this afternoon Pep Guardiola held his pre-match press conference at a Sunday's game against Luton Town.
00:07 Following four games in the Premier League that City have failed to win, there were of course a lot of questions about the team and their form
00:14 and perhaps even a couple of suggestions about whether a little bit of complacency has set in amongst the side.
00:19 But Pep Guardiola very insistent that that is not the case, said that this side are certainly still, have not become complacent in any way
00:27 but did admit that this little recent run of performance perhaps slightly lifted the hunger amongst the group
00:34 and perhaps just a little bit of a reminder of how difficult it is for teams like City to win the league title.
00:39 Pep Guardiola spoke about a lot of really interesting things, he pointed to the recent run of games that City haven't won,
00:45 four in a row against Liverpool, Tottenham, Villa and Chelsea at the start of that
00:51 and he pointed to the fact that the four are very good sides and how difficult it is to actually beat those teams.
00:56 He actually also claimed that Manchester City aren't the best team in the world, which is the praise that Rob Edwards, the Luton Town manager, gave Guardiola earlier today.
01:04 Guardiola insisting that at the moment, given they are fourth in the Premier League, that is certainly not the case.
01:09 He also spoke about the fact that he personally needs that challenge at the moment and enjoys that challenge that City,
01:17 their levels have dropped a little bit but as a manager he said something along the lines of it's great to enjoy the good times
01:23 but it's when things are going difficult and things are going bad that he enjoys that challenge of trying to come back.
01:28 He certainly feels that the side have been a bit unfairly represented over the last couple of weeks,
01:36 given some of the coverage, he obviously had a bit of a pop at the Sky Sports Pundit recently, Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher and Michael Richards.
01:42 Guardiola very insistent that actually his side are playing well and he said during the week that he still thinks that if they keep playing like this they can win the title
01:51 but he did also say that they need to improve vastly from Wednesday's display against Aston Villa,
01:57 which he said that he didn't even need to analyse afterwards and he knew straight away that their performance wasn't good enough.
02:02 He also spoke about Calvin Phillips quite a lot and he actually apologised to the midfielder because we know that he really has struggled for game time
02:10 since he joined from Leeds, not last summer but the summer before.
02:14 He's only started two Premier League games since then, both of which have actually came after City have won the title.
02:20 So he apologised to Phillips for his lack of play, insisted that he just sees the team working in a different way
02:26 and that perhaps Phillips doesn't immediately fit into that way of playing but said that he can still turn it around
02:31 and also said that he's not sure what's going to happen in January.
02:34 There is interest from a number of clubs, Juventus, Newcastle amongst them.
02:38 Guardiola said that at this stage he doesn't know what is going to happen with Phillips' future
02:42 but certainly not Neil Dawn, that he will leave the club in January.
02:46 He also finally spoke about Kevin De Bruyne and said that the midfielder who hasn't played since the first weekend of the Premier League season
02:53 due to a hamstring injury but was named in the Club World Cup squad during the week,
02:58 Guardiola said it probably is going to come too soon for him to play so he's going in a non-playing captain's capacity
03:04 but did confirm that he's back running on the grass again which is an encouraging step in his rehabilitation from that hamstring injury
03:10 but he isn't back training with the team yet so there's still a number of weeks until we see him back involved for City.
03:16 But as I say, Luton Town on Sunday, the next test for Pep Guardiola's side.
03:20 They actually go into that game fourth in the Premier League table, six points off top spot
03:25 and for City it's an opportunity to start turning things around in what has been a difficult run of games.