Embargoed Press Conference: Abdukodir Khusanov injury update from Pep Guardiola | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola will have a rare chance to rotate and test out his squad when Manchester City travel into Yorkshire this week for a Carabao Cup third round tie.

The meeting with Huddersfield Town on Wednesday night comes after a hugely challenging week for the club across competitions, taking on Manchester United, Napoli, and Arsenal in the Premier League and UEFA Champions League.

Returning from the September international break off the back of successive defeats at the hands of Tottenham and Brighton, many doubted just how far Manchester City had come following the difficulties of last season and the recruitment made over the summer.

But a refreshing of minds through national team commitments translated into stronger performances, with dominant 3-0 and 2-0 score lines put in over United and Napoli respectively, followed up by a defensively strong 1-1 draw away at the Emirates Stadium.

For the first time since 2021, and for only the third time in his career at the Etihad Stadium, Pep Guardiola selected the same Manchester City line-up for all three games, meaning wholesale changes are in store away to the League One outfit this week.

Here is every word taken out of the embargoed section from the Manchester City manager at the City Football Academy from Tuesday afternoon!

On James Trafford’s response following the signing of Gianluigi Donnarumma: “Yeah [he will come back in vs Huddersfield]… Unbelievable. Xabi Mancisidor training better than ever. He’s a fantastic keeper. And with me, all the second keepers always play a lot of games. And there will not be an exception. When he’s so safe, so confident, so young, he will learn with Gigio [Donnarumma] and in the future, we’ll see what happens.”

On whether James Trafford will be a future Manchester City No.1: “I’m not a genius to anticipate what will happen in the future, I’m sorry to tell you. I would like to tell you but I don’t know.”

On how the physical demands in top-level football have changed over the last 10 years: “Absolutely. Players are being taken care of softly and carefully much, much more than in all departments. They have a lot, a lot of people; nutritionists, and physios, doctors, both unbelievable in the last…

“I cannot tell you since I was playing because it looks like a century ago but for many, many years it’s changed a lot. But especially the way there’s more physicality, year by year is better, better, the way the opponents play. Yeah, it’s different.

“They are more and more aggressive in all departments, more man-marking, more don’t leave you spaces, the pockets are less occupied and everybody is making changes in the last one or two years, it changed a lot.

“We see PSG in the Champions League, or Barcelona or [Real] Madrid right now, for example, I saw the game against Olympique Marseille and [Dean] Hujsen playing at Bournemouth before, going 50 metres in front to take players in the pockets or play even holding midfielder.

“Before it never happened that! So the stability with four in the back or five in the back, it’s a few teams that’s happened. Today, it’s… And they jump to the keepers and jump in everything, and they changed and evolving in that sense. And I don’t know if we will come back to where it was before. And so the teams has to adapt in a different way.”

On whether people misunderstand the physical workload on players every 72 hours: “People? What are you referring to? The fans, you say, the fans, the supporters, or pundits? (Everybody outside the club) But they don’t have to know it. The fans, the spectators, want to see a good show, a good game and win your game. And the rest I think…

“Yeah, if they don’t want to understand it, they can call me and I will explain tactically the reasons why. But to be honest, yeah; listen, football in the ’60s, in the ’70s, in the ’80s, for example, Arrigo Sacchi – one of the by far most influential managers ever – comes with a 4-4-2, zonal, zonal, zonal marking, and the next 10, 15 years, a thousand million teams play in that way.

“And after, with another tendency, like I think the biggest master is [Gian Piero] Gasperini from Atalanta makes, wow, it doesn’t matter man marking, physicality, and go there. And many, many clubs, many, many now, many, many teams go in that way, in that way, in the long balls, second balls, and be so aggressive, and don’t leave you time, and it’s going in that way in most of the teams.

“You see Bournemouth, you see, I don’t know, Brentford with Thomas Frank before, and now with Tottenham, going a lot in that way. And that’s why football is so nice. Because not always it’s the same, and you have to readapt, and you have to adapt with the players you have, with the way you’re thinking, and especially in the way you want to attack.

“Because they defend you in different ways, they defend you in the last 10, nine, eight, seven, six years ago.”

On why it’s never really happened for Kalvin Phillips at Manchester City: “It’s a good question; maybe because I didn’t give him enough minutes, I don’t know. In that moment Rodri was fit, in that moment Rodri was, what can I say? It looks like our father in that time, being protective for the other 10 sons.

“We felt… And maybe the lack of minutes, and maybe the way we played, it was completely maybe different from playing like in Leeds before with Marcelo [Bielsa], and the other one. Always I feel attached and understandable completely with the players, what they feel because always I believe in that level, in that level, all the players are really, really good.

“It’s just the environment, how they connect with the way we play, especially with other mates. And the players play good when they have minutes, they have games, games, games and I didn’t give them. And when that’s happened I feel bad, but he’s an incredible person, and has been injured, and two loan spells in West Ham and Ipswich, and now he’s come back here.

“So as much as he’s a player for Man City, he’ll train with us and we’ll try to help, and maybe this season changes, and maybe they can play some games and get confident and play and help us. So as much as he’s a player with us, always he’ll be with the first team training with us.”

On whether Manchester City can challenge for the Premier League title: “It’s the same what I said, I don’t know! You asked me this question years ago, right? When after four or five games we should win the Premier League in November, in December. And I said, I don’t know.

“So I know we are extra favourites against machine teams than before Liverpool under Jurgen [Klopp], or Arsenal or [Manchester] United or whatever. And after Eddie Howe with Newcastle, so I don’t know. It’s the same right now.

“I know we are eight points difference from Liverpool, it’s a lot points, but we have three points difference with the second position. It’s just five games played. It just I want to see above my team in terms of body languages like I said many times, I love it. And after, hopefully we can step by step improve.”

On Abdukodir Khusanov’s injury: “Yeah, [he] will be out [for the] next three games, yeah.”

On him saying Manchester City are starting to rediscover things that define them as a team: “Yeah, you have to… always our team is defined really, really good when we are so aggressive in our high pressing, in our shape and the way we do it and regain the ball quicker. That defined our team for this last decade. And when we don’t have that, and that happened against Arsenal because we don’t put much people up front, so we struggle, we defend deeper.

“And after with the ball we have to, being difficult right now because what I said in the last minutes, the teams are so much more aggressive and they don’t allow you much. When we can, we have to play a little bit, I would say a little bit more because we need it. We need it because we are here to play.

“But it’s what I’m saying; so I’m sure we will improve step by step because in the last two games we saw, against [Manchester] United and Napoli we saw things that I like a lot in many aspects. Yeah, having mistakes, but that is not the question. And [against] Arsenal I think because they are a good team.

“But we defended, never before in my career, for a long, long time, all together compact in the middle and deep. Never, never we were we able to do it and we were able to do it. And I take this like an incredible positive thing for our future.”

On the body language being different to last season: “All together. We talked a lot this period, a lot, and what we need to be happy in our job, to be, you know, coming here like feeling comfortable at home and whatever happens, there are guys around you that support you, that a bad pass and the intention is always good and being there. That is the foundation.

“All the time have been like that in the teams. The foundation is the spirit, not the tactics, not these kind of things. To talk about the past, the tactics from Pep or whatever, no. The biggest issues is how we were connected as a team in the bad moments, in the good moments, and how we help each other. And that is a principle for everything in life, you know?

“And after, of course we have the duty and the obligation to do better and do that. But our fans especially are not stupid and when they see this spirit together, how we want to connect with them and within each other, the people forgive and forget absolutely the bad moments, everything.”

On the evolution of Manchester City’s team so far this season: “I said many times, I would say – jokes aside – for the fact that always when we won the Premier League, we were a boring team, right? So that’s why I said, OK, I’m going to make counter-attacks more this season… Maybe the players in the future can talk about how much I changed this season compared to the other ones.

“Maybe they are the most credible to talk about if really, really I changed the approach because they are in every meeting, they are in every game, they are in every post-meeting, post-game. You can ask them. I think it’s completely the same, completely. What changed is the opponents play a different way, we are not able to do it better. I said after the game, Arsenal were better.

“I don’t like to play in the way we played at Arsenal, but there are a lot of things I love it, I love it, I didn’t have it in the past and I love it. And I said in this press conference, but the way we want to play and sustaining that…

“Always I believe when I started being a football player with Johan Cruyff and the teams make man-to-man, always said to me, ‘When you have the ball, Pep, as a holding midfielder, look [for] Romario. Look up front!’ Why should I be close when that guy is being marked and this guy is being marked and this guy is being marked and this guy is being marked?! I have to play there [long]. Because there he’s one against one.

“You play, and it’s against one against one. And you want to play one against one Erling? Play one against one Erling! If you lose that duel, it will be a goal. We’ll see what happens, right? So read that situation because before we have one more player to do the process and doing that. Against Napoli, we changed the way we play against Napoli? Three days later, we changed our way to play. Phwoar, I’m really good, changing absolutely everything in three days. I must be a really, really good manager.

“Sometimes the opponents are good and create the challenges that you cannot handle and the other one. But since I retire in this club, or I retire, I would love to play in the way I want to play. Sometimes we are not able, sometimes we are not good, sometimes the opponent is better. But for one game it’s bad and saying that the team is going…

“Yeah, I want to make the transition. When we defend deep, always I say, ‘When we defend deeper because they are better or we are shit, you can run, RUN. You can run on transition, run’. But it’s because we are there. But in the principles, I prefer to regain up the pitch, and make a lot of possession to de-structure the opponents, to try to punish them.

“Always I’ve been like that and always I will be like that. If it doesn’t happen, I tell you what, it’s because we were bad, we were not good. Not because we want to do that. That is, I would say.”

On whether Nico O’Reilly could play further forward against Huddersfield: “It depends on the injured players. If Rayan Ait-Nouri should be fit, he’ll play there and Nico [O’Reilly] will play in the middle, or maybe don’t play, I don’t know. It depends. I don’t want to… It was a really tough, tough week in terms of physically demanding, emotionally, we came from two defeats and everything, and the last game has been really, really tough.

“Just three days recovery, coming back from London late and all this kind of stuff. Today was so tired the players. Today will be even more and tomorrow we have a game, like I know what does it mean playing against a Championship or League One teams. They are, you know, especially away…

“And my only concern is rest energy for the players that spend these two weeks for Saturday against Burnley. That is my only concern, I will not give energy. But Nico is young, and Phil [Foden] is young and it’s completely different like our grandfathers, Bernardo’s, and these kind of people. They are more older.”

On Divine Mukasa and Stephen Mfuni: “Yeah, they have chance. They will come for sure and after we will see if they play from the beginning or during the game. But some players of the academy, what happened last season against the Spurs and before against Newcastle, two games away, like we played really, really good. We were out, but we played really good.

“I always said before, it’s an incredible competition, for in the beginning for the guys who didn’t play in the first games, take rhythm and play. But when we have injuries like this right now, I will not spend too much energy for this competition because the priority is the Premier League and in these circumstances, the Premier League and the Champions League.”