Sports

Guardiola, Mourinho clash in China

Published

8 years ago

July 24, 2016

Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho clash once again as Manchester City take on United in Beijing in a mouth-watering pre-season friendly.

The rivalry between the two men is well-known and is set to continue with the pair now in charge of the two Manchester clubs, and Monday’s meeting will see them go head-to-head once again.

The Red Devils were beaten 4-1 by Borussia Dortmund last time out and Mourinho has already been riled by questions about Guardiola and the state of the pitch ahead of the game.

Indeed the Portuguese has claimed his main priority is ensuring none of his players are injured against City while insisting he is not concerned by the result.

“We are unlucky because the pitch is very bad,” he told reporters.

“The condition of my players is more important than the results in pre-season. It is not a problem for me to lose matches in pre-season. It’s a problem for me if there are bad conditions for my players to train and bad conditions for my players to play.

“So if you ask me for my objective for tomorrow, I have only one – take the players home safe without any kind of injury.”

“City against United for me is at Old Trafford or at the Etihad or even the cup final at Wembley. Not a friendly.”

Guardiola, meanwhile, has shared Mourinho’s concerns about the state of the pitch which has been affected by heavy rain and a fungus disease which has been exacerbated by the weather.

“The most important thing is that we get no injuries [on Monday],” he said. “We have not seen the pitch but the information is that it is not in good condition.”

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