MANCHESTER CITY boss Pep Guardiola has made a stark admission ahead of this weekend’s Manchester derby.
The Spaniard currently finds himself in uncharted territory – with just one win under his belt in 10 games.
City have plummeted down both the Premier League and Champions League table as a result.
And they face another big challenge on Sunday at the Etihad.
The reigning Prem champions play host to local rivals Manchester United in a huge derby clash.
But Guardiola himself has claimed he does not even know where to begin when it comes to his starting line-up.
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John Stones, Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji are all injured, while Rico Lewis will be forced to serve a one-match suspension at the weekend.
That leaves City with few defensive options.
Asked about having limited defenders available during his pre-match press conference, Guardiola said: “I don’t know what I have to do. We have three and we will see what happened.
“Maybe some winger has to play as a full-back or Matheus [Nunes] can play as a full-back, can play five at the back.
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“We are thinking what to do with a situation with just three central defenders. The soul and spirit of this team is there.
“We are sad for the players because the way they run and fight – Bernardo [Silva] played a lot of minutes, Gundo [Ilkay Gundogan] played alone in that position, arrive in the final third.
“Rico [Lewis] our most consistent player of the season for our referee cannot play there.
“I think I know. This group of players can make an era in eight, nine ten years that nobody has done.
“The positive records this group have done, we all encourage them to support them until the end.
“It’s unbelievable what they have done to compete in the calendar with more games than ever and maybe reflect that today.
“It is more difficult financially but today we are going to play the World Cup in the summer, three weeks, start again the Premier League and maybe we have to have a deeper squad when people say what is the problem.
“The problem is the schedule – sooner or later the players will come back… We will see.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
