No complacency from Manchester City after Super Cup win, warns Newcastle’s Eddie Howe
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Under Eddie Howe (left), Newcastle qualified for the Champions League for the first time in two decades last season.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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MANCHESTER – Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City will not get complacent after winning the Uefa Super Cup
City beat Sevilla on penalties in Athens to add to last season’s treble success. Howe said Guardiola’s side will not rest on their laurels against a team looking to establish themselves as regular top-four contenders.
Newcastle qualified for the Champions League for the first time in two decades last season and go into Saturday’s clash at the Etihad Stadium as table-toppers after a 5-1 home victory over Aston Villa on the opening weekend.
“They (City) went into a tough game and were desperate to win, you could see their reactions afterwards. This is a team that will not be complacent. They will be ready for us, so we expect a really good game,” Howe said.
“We want our players to go there with all the positive emotions that our season last year and our first game of this season should bring.
“We want to become a top team consistently in the Premier League and to do that we have to have a clear identity and try to implement that on other teams.”
Guardiola on Friday again complained about their league fixture coming just 72 hours after their triumph in Athens, giving them little time to recover, but Howe said that would have no impact on the result.
“For me, there is no advantage. I’ve been on both sides,” Howe said. “We’ve played a lot of games in a short period of time and you think, maybe is that a weakness for us and we have won games from that situation.
“We have also lost games in that situation, so it will just come down to how we perform on the day and how they perform on the day. I understand the way he is thinking about it, but it won’t have any bearing on the result.”
Against Sevilla, City badly missed the creativity of Kevin de Bruyne and Bernardo Silva, who were sidelined by injury and illness respectively.
Guardiola, whose side could become the first team to win four consecutive English top-flight titles, challenged his players to find solutions in their absence but also vented his frustrations at the Premier League’s schedule.
“People went to sleep at 4am in Greece when they played at 10pm. We arrived here late, then it’s a game tomorrow. Today we cannot train, I wanted to but we do not have time,” he fumed.
“But okay, we accept it, this is the challenge. Every manager would say the same. This is why we won. Because we overcome all the time this kind of position.
“Now we face Newcastle, one of the more physical teams, one of the more efficient teams in the Premier League right now. This is what defines the big teams, how we compete with the problems.” REUTERS
