Manchester City will have to overcome West Ham United on Sunday to win the league title but Pep Guardiola insisted that the match will be difficult for his players because “West Ham will be ready to beat” City at the Etihad Stadium.
The Cityzens are undoubtedly the favourites going into the match. The Sky Blues are undefeated against the Hammers in the Premier League since 2015. They have won 15 matches and drew 3 of their last 18 league encounters with the London club.
Therefore, the defending champions are in position to defeat the Hammers again to win the title. However, Pep Guardiola warned his players to give everything because David Moyes’ side will be ready to defeat them even though they have nothing to fight again this season.
“We need to win one game to be champions. Every team would love to be in our position, that’s for sure,” said the City boss. “But it won’t be easy. I have the feeling it will be an Aston Villa game.
“The outside, I don’t care. The 11 players at West Ham will be ready to beat us. That happened with Aston Villa in the same position and didn’t have anything to play for two seasons ago and I know what happened.
The City boss said he has found a way to motivate Manchester City players, revealing that he would show them how good they are before the match.
“It belongs to us. I’m going to show them how good they are and what they have to do. As simple as that,” he said.
“We want to experience it again and we have to perform. You can’t think ‘we want to win it’, you have to do something to [earn] it, you have to be resilient in the bad moments like what happened against Aston Villa [in 2022] and against Spurs in the last game.”
Guardiola said his players must control the match, do whatever they suppose to do without focusing on the consequences of the result. He insisted that every little thing matter, and Man City players and their supporters must be ready for the game.
“Don’t talk about the consequences, just what you have to do to win, to control it, the transitions, the coolness, the set-pieces, the long balls – how you defend every single ball. There’s a lot of stuff that West Ham demand that you have to do, and you have to do it perfect. These are the only things on my mind.
“I don’t want to play the game thinking about the consequences, what will happen if. We have to be focused more than ever and feel the support of our people – this is what we need to think about.”