Pep Guardiola: ‘Crystal Palace has always been a tough game’

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola says ‘Crystal Palace has always been a tough game’ for his sides as the two sides clash later Saturday afternoon in a Premier League clash.

Palace will jet out to Manchester without a win in their last five Premier League matches, four of them defeats.

The club enjoyed a famous win at the Etihad in October 2021 have shown to be a tough nut to crack for the top sides.

Speaking ahead of the ties, Guardiola said “It has always been a tough game.” “How they defend is brilliant and they don’t need much at set-pieces with (Joachim) Anderson and the other guys. I don’t remember easy games against Roy Hodgson teams. With Patrick (Vieira) also, but especially with Roy.”

On whether he can continue in the touchline at Hodgson’s age, 76, Guardiola laughed.

“I don’t think so, but you never know!” he said. “To have the fire and passion inside to still be there and the team is really good.

“They played incredibly well against Liverpool, unfortunately they had a player sent off and with 10 against 11 against Liverpool it is almost impossible, but 11 against 11 I don’t know what would have happened.”

Meanwhile, Pep has praised academy products Micah Hamilton and 20-year-old Oscar Bobb.  The two players starred in City’s 3-2 Champions League win in Serbia.

“For all the big clubs, the academy is an important part of many things,” Guardiola said. “We just see what happened in the last five or six years with academy players. They help us or they make a career away with a good transfer for the club to be sustainable economically.

“I know how important it is for our fans, our people to identify the young lads like Rico, Phil (Foden), Micah as well. Coming from being seven, eight, nine years old and being in the first team is something phenomenal.

“We continue to work on that and hopefully in future we can have more players like this.”