Pep Guardiola confident Manchester City will build from ‘bad moments’

LONDON – Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola hopes to put last weekend’s Premier League setback aside as he prepares for the League Cup semi-final, second-leg clash against Newcastle United on Feb 4.

City missed the chance to keep up with league leaders Arsenal when they drew 2-2 at Tottenham Hotspur. The result meant that they remain second on 47 points, six behind the Gunners.

There are 14 matches remaining, but the focus now for Guardiola is not the Premier League but to build on their 2-0 aggregate lead in the League Cup.

City, who are playing at the Etihad Stadium for the second leg, are eight-time winners of the competition.

However, they had not been to the title showdown since they beat Spurs 1-0 in 2021, while Newcastle are the holders following their 2-1 win over Liverpool last season.

“We have the chance to make our fifth final in 10 years in the Carabao Cup,” said Guardiola on Feb 3.

“Of course it was a good result (in the first leg) and I would prefer to start 2-0 up, but I know perfectly the many times we have played against Newcastle... so we need to be prepared and see how the players recover after a tough game with Spurs.

“Play our game for our people and our fans and try to reach Wembley in March. It is hard to play finals. It is really good for most of them (the new City players) and for the club, it is so important.

“It is a different competition. Of course, results help but I am confident in every action and every time building in the bad moments and moving on to the next one.”

The City boss also confirmed that the injured Jeremy Doku remains unavailable for the clash, while Rayan Cherki suffered a “knock” against Spurs and will be further assessed before a decision is made.

Despite losing 2-1 to Newcastle at St James’ Park in the Premier League in November, City bounced back by winning 2-0 in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final in January at the same venue.

Guardiola’s men will be favourites to win again based on their form, notwithstanding their draw with Spurs.

They have claimed four wins from their last seven matches – and three of those have been clear-cut 2-0 victories, including the triumph over the Magpies.

City have also lost only twice at home in all competitions this season, with their most recent a 2-0 loss to Bayer Leverkusen all the way back in November.

Newcastle, meanwhile, have been poor on the road and they head into this clash, having lost seven of their 16 away games in all tournaments.

Eddie Howe’s men suffered a heavy 4-1 thrashing at Liverpool over the weekend and will be short on confidence. To add to their woes, the Magpies have not won at City since 2014.

When asked how he plans to overcome the two-goal deficit, the Newcastle boss said: “Firstly we have to try and win the game. If we have that mentality that we’re going to try and get all the disciplines of our game in a good place and attack the game, let’s see what we can do.

“We have to have that belief. The second goal in the first game was a big disappointment. But we have the talent, we believe in ourselves but it will be an almighty challenge.”

Howe also hinted that he would not want to make too many changes from the first leg regarding his line-up, but injuries may force his hand.

Captain Bruno Guimaraes and Lewis Miley have been ruled out, joining the likes of Valentino Livramento, Emil Krafth and Joelinton on the sidelines.

“There is a lot of thought going into our team selections at the moment,” said Howe.

“We don’t want to rotate too many at one time to give the players the best chance to perform. We try to minimise injuries and a lot of injuries lately have been knocks where we can do very little about it.”