MANCHESTER City manager Pep Guardiola is confident his players have the mentality to drive themselves to success as they face Arsenal in a top-of-the-table English Premier League clash today.
A win for the champions at the Etihad Stadium would take them abve Arsenal to second place or top spot, depending on the outcome of Liverpool’s clash with Brighton earlier.
Speaking ahead of the big clash, Guardiola stated that it is the mentality of his players that drives the side on to success.
“I think it comes from inside themselves. After eight years, I don’t have to motivate them every three days — it doesn’t work like that unfortunately,” the Spaniard said as he previewed the fixture.
“They have something inside – some fire – to compete or else we would not be here. I say a thousand million times that the biggest reason behind our success is the players and their desire to extend the success.
“They set the benchmark for the future generations. I couldn’t imagine we would be here after all these years and every year be in the top three, FA Cup semi-finals and the Champions League. It’s so complicated and it’s really good – really good.”
City won the Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League Treble last season and have won five EPL titles in the last seven seasons under Guardiola’s leadership.
The former Barcelona manager however insists that that previous achievements will not affect the destination of this season’s Premier League trophy.
“The past is the past – what we have to do is win against Arsenal and then Aston Villa in the next game,” he noted.
“You cannot think about what happened in the past because it’s a new day. It’s important we did what we did, but I didn’t expect to arrive after the international break and be where we are.
“You could say Arsenal have not won the Premier League for 20 years so will have something special to prove it – we know that – always when Liverpool and Jurgen challenged us so always they give you something special.
“What we have to do is be ourselves with our people – the will being something special on Sunday, I’m pretty sure – just like they did against United to help us make a good performance.”
