Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola admits EPL champions have no option but to try and defend well against star-studded French side featuring Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar tonight
Paris Saint-Germain’s Lionel Messi (right), Neymar (centre) and Kylian Mbappe at training. Pic/Getty Images
Pep Guardiola says he does not know how to stop the deadly attacking trident of Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar as he prepares for Tuesday’s blockbuster Champions League clash at PSG. The match is a repeat of last season’s semi-final, which City won 4-1 on aggregate to reach their first Champions League final, which they lost to Chelsea.
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Messi completed a free transfer from Barcelona to PSG in August, with the French club uniting the Argentine, Brazilian star Neymar and French World Cup winner Mbappe up front. “With this amount of quality, I don’t know what we should do to stop them—they are so good,” the City boss said. “This amount of talent, all together to be controlled, is so difficult. You have to defend well when we don’t have the ball, but it’s difficult. They are exceptional players, everybody knows it.”
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City boss Guardiola
Guardiola has bitter experience of facing Messi and Neymar from when he was manager at Bayern—the two players scored five goals between them to dump his team out at the Champions League semi-finals in 2015. The City boss believes PSG’s star-studded front line can match that of Barcelona’s in 2015—which also included Luis Suarez.
“They have the quality,” he said. “They have exceptional players and a good organisation and I think the manager [Mauricio Pochettino] can do it. We know how difficult it [PSG’s attack] is—maybe it’s the most difficult one. We are going to try and do our game, knowing how good they are individually and collectively.”
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