Guardiola breaks the tradition of not talking about opposition players, as he discussed Cristiano Ronaldo during the press conference on Friday
By Kehinde Okeowo
Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, has said his team can win the Premier League without a known striker or center-forward.
The gaffer made the revelation on Friday, during the press conference ahead of Saturday’s Manchester derby against local rival Manchester United.
Guardiola also buttressed his point, by saying they won last season’s trophy without a proper number nine, as Aguero was sidelined by injury all through the season.
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He added that contrary to the belief that City deliberately left out signing a proper number nine during the summer transfer window, they made efforts but it wasn’t to be.
The 50-year-old Guardiola, who doesn’t normally talk about opposition players ahead of matches, on Friday, made an exception, as he spoke about Ronaldo, who snubbed City for United in the summer
“Normally I don’t talk about other players at other clubs, I’m pretty sure he’s happy at United and they’re happy to have him.
“I’m not a magician to know what is going to happen this season. If I did, I would tell my team to relax because we would know what is going to happen but I don’t know.
“But just trust and be confident. Look at how many we scored last season without Sergio [Aguero] because unfortunately he was injured all season.
“Maybe in the future Manchester City will sign a proper striker, a number nine and we will not score goals, who knows? We are who we are. I’ve spoken many times about this. We wanted to and couldn’t do it. We have enough players to try to do it.” he said.
Guardiola’s team are currently third behind Chelsea and Liverpool on 20 points, while United is in 5th on 17th points with Arsenal who are in 6th position.
United can, however, go level on points with City, if they beat them later today at Old Trafford, but it’s an Herculean task to leapfrog them, given the fact that City have a superior +14 goal difference.
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