Pep Guardiola has said he has no alternative other than “just to handle it” as his ailing Manchester City squad bears the brunt of a heavy schedule he compared to the NBA.
City’s first defeat of the Premier League season, at Bournemouth on Saturday, followed exiting the Carabao Cup at Tottenham in midweek. Guardiola put his team’s slump down to the “reality we are living now”: their season is scheduled to run until Fifa’s inaugural, and controversial, Club World Cup, planned for June and July 2025 in the US, with games continuing to come thick and fast until then. On Tuesday City face Sporting, with the incoming Manchester United manager, Rúben Amorim, at the helm, in the Champions League.
