by Pep Guardiola has revealed that the Premier League has rejected Manchester City’s request to delay the start of next season to give players more time to recover from the Club World Cup. City are expected to compete in the tournament in the United States next summer, which could see them finish their current campaign in mid-July.
City have raised with the Premier League the possibility of starting the 2025-26 season after other top teams and officials have indicated they will not make an exception for the current champions, who will be joined in America by Chelsea . .
“The Premier League tells us yes? No, absolutely not,” Guardiola said.
“I don’t know if we will play more games than the year of the triple [2022-23] before the States. Maybe we’ll play fewer games. In the end… the Premier League did not allow us to postpone the first two matches for our resumption. Thank you so much. They’re not rescheduling these games, so this will be the moment of “Oh, what do we do?” » I don’t have an answer at the moment because I’ve never been there before. I think we will make a decision with common sense. We will see how the players are, the schedule, then we will decide.
Fifa insists participating teams must take their strongest squads to the 32-team competition, which begins on June 15 and runs for 29 days, amid concerns clubs are wary of resting their senior players after a exhausting season. “Who are the strongest players? Which ones? If Fifa told me, for them, which players are stronger than the others. I don’t understand that,” Guardiola said. “We will go there with the whole team, we are not going there for just one match. I don’t know the competition at the moment, we are not betting on 11 players, we’re betting on the entire squad. I don’t know why this player is stronger than the other.
“Maybe the strongest player for them is in a very bad state for many reasons: personal, professional, problems, injuries. And we’re going to play some more. I’m not going to say before the match which player to play. I’ll decide, that’s for sure.
Kevin De Bruyne will again be absent for the visit of Fulham on Saturday due to a pelvis injury. As well as missing this month’s international break, he has asked Belgium to exclude him from next month’s Nations League matches in order to get some rest. “It’s not a big deal, but it still doesn’t feel good,” Guardiola said. “When you are not in good shape, recover because everything will be fine here, and then you will come back better for the national team. This is why Kevin, from my point of view, is the smartest and wisest decision.
