Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has voiced out his frustrations over the amount of games his team are likely to play next season.
Guardiola is looking to win his fifth consecutive Premier League title with Man City and they start their title defense against Chelsea. City will also feature in the expanded FIFA Club World Cup next summer and its set to be a long season.
The Spaniard has now insisted that it will be difficult to protect the players with their number of games likely to increase this season.
City play Manchester United in the Community Shield in 12 days, and open their Premier League campaign with a tough assignment against Chelsea a week later.
“We will arrive late,” the boss warned. “But not against United, against Chelsea and Ipswich. We will be late, it’s try to not drop many points, try to compete well. We don’t have players because they have to rest, if the big bosses and all the institutions like FIFA, UEFA and the Premier League don’t think about the players then the managers have to think about them, otherwise they will die.
“It’s too much. That’s why three weeks or one month is necessary, but the competition is there and you have to adapt.”
FIFPro, the player’s union, have launched a legal challenge against FIFA regarding next year’s Club World Cup. Guardiola has acknowledged that, doubting whether the competition will take place, but is preparing for it to go ahead.
“No, there’s no solution, there will not be a solution because there is no intention to find a solution,” Guardiola said bluntly on Saturday. “The clubs have to travel to make our brand around the world, to let other continents and places see our players, and we have to adapt. It’s not just happened this season, it happened for five, six, seven years, every time it’s the same.
“We would like to have had proper preparation but it’s impossible because national teams deserve to play and every institution like FIFA and UEFA and local competitions, want to defend their product and make games. We have a good squad when everybody comes back, we have three, four, five interesting players just in case we need them.
“We will do what we have done in the previous seasons when we have had success having the same calendar as this year, so it is what it is and we have to adapt.”
