Press Conference, Part Two: Savinho receives huge Pep Guardiola praise and Brazil prediction | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has issued significant praise for Savinho amid the Brazilian’s rise in form over the last few matches for Manchester City across competitions.

The Etihad side are certainly in a rich vein of form at present, unbeaten since the end of August across all nine of their last matches in all competitions, with their latest result coming in European action.

First-half goals from Erling Haaland and Bernardo Silva were enough to secure all three points in the Champions League’s third matchday of the league phase, giving City plenty of hope of an automatic place in the last-16 of the competition ahead of two upcoming home ties.

There remains plenty of work to do in Europe, but even more so in the Premier League as the campaign hurtles towards its notoriously difficult winter fixture list, with a trip away to Aston Villa the latest test of Manchester City’s trophy-winning credentials.

City were comfortably beaten in the West Midlands last season despite a late consolation goal as Pep Guardiola’s side endured a torrid run of form before securing revenge in the reverse fixture later in the campaign thanks to a last-minute strike from Matheus Nunes.

As Manchester City return to Premier League action on Sunday afternoon, here is every single word from the second-half of Pep Guardiola’s pre-Aston Villa press conference at the City Football Academy!

On whether Matheus Nunes has the determination to become one of the best right-backs: “Yes, I’m pretty sure. Because he’s… Always you have to learn some movements and some, but I think he can do it perfectly. He can do it.”

On whether Aston Villa (A) last season, where Unai Emery’s side were much better, was one of the moments where he realised Manchester City needed to evolve and change the team: “And two seasons ago, too… At that moment, we were in the mess. It was not at Villa Park, it was a moment. We were already before many, many games, and… It’s one of the lowest points. For sure, last season in this…

“Because I said many times, the last five games in the Premier League, the last 10 games in the Premier League, in the last 15 or 20 games of the Premier League last season, we were the best team in terms of points. It was really, really good.

“Otherwise, we wouldn’t have finished third. But it was in terms of October, November and until January, we were not able to win one game; not in the Champions League, not in the Premier League, that not allowed us to go in that position. And when we were there, I remember that… I saw the game yesterday and I thought, ‘Wow. No energy and didn’t have anything.’

“So, we didn’t deserve… Yeah, it was 2-1, Phil [Foden] scored at the end, but… We didn’t deserve at all. So, always I want my team to deserve what we want to achieve. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, right? Sometimes you play better, better, don’t win, but it’s football.

“But I don’t like it when… So, when you lose in that way, it’s well deserved. I like it. So… Put it on the face of the reality and what we have to do better. But I’m pretty sure we will do better on Sunday. So, we are another team.

“We are a team like we were even the first year, nine years ago, eight years ago, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. So… It’s the team right now that we can win, we can lose, but still we are a team like… We can do good things.”

On how Manchester City go about resting and rotating Erling Haaland, or whether he has to play ever game in a 12-month season: “Oh I’m so sorry for my colleague [Stale] Solbakken in the national team from Norway, but I’m not thinking about that. So, maybe at the end. When we win the Premier League for 10 points in front, 10 fixtures before, and after we’ll take a rest. But now he feels fit, he feels fine.

“And of course there are games like it’s already, you know, solved, or he looks tired, of course he’s not going to play. But we are in a position right now in the Champions League, it’s massively important and the games we have played so far and the next two games at home, they will give us the real, real, real chance to finish in the first eight.

“And in the Premier League, I don’t have the feeling now that Arsenal’s going to drop much points. So that is a reality, I have the feeling Arsenal and in Liverpool as well; even now, Liverpool lost the last games, not in the Champions League in Frankfurt.

“But I saw the game against [Manchester] United, they had been incredible chances to win the game. So I think Liverpool remains… the main favourites. And the distance, three or four points at that stage is nothing.

“Always I had the feeling that both teams and maybe other ones, they will lose few, few points. That’s why we have to be there.”

On Savinho focussing again and providing assists after a difficult summer on and off the pitch: “Savio is a top player, he can play on both sides, he feels comfortable playing on both sides. And I said last season, being in the first season in the Premier League is not easy to play a lot of minutes.

“Just the moment he makes this step to be a decisive player in terms of goals, assists, but especially goals, he will be a top class player. Top class. He needs to make that step. For example, against Everton, he had in the first minutes two chances one against one with the keeper.

“The moment he makes a step and makes goals and makes goals, and he has to do it because he has the quality to do it, we’ve seen in the training sessions, he will become. We are really pleased. He is so young, we cannot forget that; he is such a young player, early ages.

“I’m really pleased for him. In the last two games, he made an aggressive and courage to go one against one. He made an assist for the second goal against Erling, the second goal against Bernardo [Silva] against Villarreal. Assist to Rico [Lewis] to make the cross, so he is involved in many things. Just make the encouragement to score.

“The moment he makes goals and goals, he has the chance to do it, Villarreal has another one, too, in the second half. So, he will become a really good player and Brazil, [Carlo] Ancelotti will have an incredible player for him.”

On whether it was difficult to settle Savinho after the summer: “No. (He signed a new contract now, so he’s clearly happy with the club) Yeah, absolutely. I think the club showed him how much we want him, how much we count on him, and I think it was good.

“And the proof of that is we signed the contract because otherwise we would not trust, the club didn’t trust, don’t trust with him – we would not do it. And of course sometimes with the agents in the pre-season, the transfer window and market, you can do this, you can win more money here, money there, the other clubs and the managers, always you are a little bit [uncertain].

“That’s why I had the feeling when the transfer window is closed, now we start the season and everyone is focused. And he is.”

On whether he played a role in keeping Savinho: “Yeah, absolutely. But at the end, if he insists on, ‘I want to leave, I want to leave.’ And the offer is good for the club, and after the club… I have my opinion, but always, always, since I arrived here, in Barcelona, in Bayern Munich, the last word belongs to the club.

“But maybe tomorrow I’m not here, and the player will stay here, and will stay with another manager. And the club has to be sure that that player wants. Of course, I give my opinion, they ask me and I give; with Txiki [Begiristain], with Hugo [Viana], with Ferran [Soriano], with Khaldoon [Al Mubarak], always I give my opinion about the player and the other one, what I think should happen.

“But the last word, the decisions always with Txiki, with Hugo, belongs to them. It has to be like that.”

On what he is looking for when re-watching a previous game against an opponent from almost 12 months ago, such as Aston Villa (A) last season: “I see how they defend, how we have to attack, how they attack, how we have to defend. And especially how is our energy, how is the duels, how is the body language, how we help each other, how we complain to each other, how we didn’t have any moments in behind – many of this kind of stuff. That is what happens.”

On what you say to the players at that point in the season, amid a lack of energy against Aston Villa (A) last season: “One of the problems last season is that when you have that position, the competition between each other, the players are not energetic. OK, you have energy, we’ll be back, play another three or four or five players new, we’ll have energy because they want to play. That season it could not happen!

“At play they have energy, some of them after winning four Premier League in a row was, ‘Okay, what’s next?’ They don’t have it. And when that happened, the players that were tired in energy, not because they didn’t want it, but didn’t have it. Sometimes you are drained, you are empty. It happened.

“How many games did we play really good in the beginning, have chances, and at 65 minutes the players were tired and after that, sad and disappointed for the result again and again and again. But three days later, I had to use the same players because we didn’t have another option, because all of them were in the massage table, were in the hospital.

“So that’s why, and when the moment came back and Kova [Mateo Kovacic] came back and everybody was sad, I said, ‘Guys, we have to make a step up’, we talked a lot. And in the winter time, the club made the signings for the next four, five, six, seven years because all of them had still unfinished business because they are young.

“And after that, the team came back, not to compete… Well we arrived in the FA Cup Final and we played really good against Crystal Palace, I’d say. And we finished third [in the Premier League]. So always, I said the same; when you play that season, in that season when me personally or my staff and the players gave up, gave up, we’d finish 10th.

“In this league, we’d finish 10th. And we finished third. And not much, much away from Arsenal, who was really, really good. So that’s why I said, if we continue, don’t give up, whatever happens, stay there, stay there, at the end, we’ll be proud and everything can happen.”

On whether the determination to continue last season and eventually finish third set Manchester City up for the way they are playing at the moment: “Absolutely, we realised that if we… The players are the first; they came to me a month ago and said to me, ‘Pep, we don’t want to live the season that we lived last season.’ They are the first. So I never expect one player, even last season, that played in front of 65,000, 70,000 people and they want to perform properly and well. They have pride. I know those guys and they want to do it.

“But we were empty, drained, for the success that we had in the past, for the injuries, for many, many things. And when you realise, ‘OK, it’s not a problem. Life always cannot be perfect, always we cannot win all the time.’

“As much as you realise what you have to do to get better, we will be a good team. We will be a good team. As I said before, we are not consistent for 90, 95 minutes yet. But even in the bad moments, we are quite stable and yeah, we create some moments that are good.”