Manchester City boss, Pep Guardiola has revealed Arsenal are better poised to win the Community Shield ahead of the crunch on Sunday.
The treble-winnning coach said this at the pre-match press conference on Friday.
Guardiola believed the Gunners, who finished second last season, started the pre-season earlier than City, thus are in a better shape.
As a result of City’s constant winning of trophies, the former Barcelona manager asserted that the Cityzens always kicked off the season in a difficult way.
“The situation that we are in, we finished (last season) two weeks later than Arsenal and we start (this season) two weeks later. So, we are not in the best way.”
“We struggle to restart every season but it’s fine, and hopefully our mentality can help us to be there and compete.”
In a bid to continue firing up as last season, Mikel Arteta has added some significant signings to his squad.
Big names such as Declan Rice, Kai Havertz and Jurien Timber from West Ham, Chelsea and Ajax respectively have joined the club and Guardiola did not fail to acknowledge these new signings, Rice especially.
“Rice decided to go to Arsenal, I wish him all the best. He is a really nice guy, for the England team he is important. Arsenal have bought a really good player.”
“They didn’t buy players to make the squad bigger, they have bought starting players. I could not expect anything different.”
Manchester City, on the other hand, have endured some disappointing departures with Algerian international Riyadh Mahrez and German international Ilkay Gundogan have departed for Al-Ahli and Barcelona respectively.
As it stands, the Blues are on the verge of losing Joao Cancelo, Bernando Silva and Kyle Walker.
Guardiola did not hold back his dissatisfaction at losing Silva and Walker as he did seem not to take an interest in Cancelo.
“Kyle and Bernardo, what could I say? They are so important for us. We want them, (so) we are going to do everything (to keep them). We want (Silva) to stay because he wants to stay.”
“These two players’ (situations) are difficult – we have already lost two incredible players. They scored goals in big important games. To lose Kyle and Bernardo would be so difficult. We will do everything to keep them,” added Guardiola.
Ahead of this clash, Guardiola hoped the deal between Manchester City and RP Leipzig for Gvardiol is finalised soon.
“Gvardiol, what a beautiful surname he has! Everybody knows he is here. Hopefully, we can finish the deal in the next few hours or days,” he said.
