Pep Guardiola has revealed the Premier League has rejected Manchester City’s request to delay their start to next season in order to allow players more time to recover from the Club World Cup. City are set to take part in the tournament in the United States next summer, which could see them end their current campaign in mid-July.
City have spoken to the Premier League about the prospect of beginning the 2025-2026 season after other top-flight teams and have been told by the authorities that they will not make an exception for the current champions, who will be joined in America by Chelsea.
“The Premier League say yes to us? No, absolutely not,” said Guardiola.
“I don’t know if we will play more games than the treble year [2022-23] before the States. Maybe we’ll play less games. In the end … the Premier League has not allowed us to postpone the first two games for our recovery. Thank you so much. They don’t postpone these games so that will be the moment of ‘Oh, what do we do?’ I don’t have an answer right now because I’ve not been there before. I think we are going to take a decision with common sense. We will see how the players are, the schedule, then we are going to decide.”
Fifa insist participating teams must take their strongest squads to the 32-team competition, which starts on 15 June and takes place over 29 days, amid concern clubs could rest senior players after a gruelling season. “What is the strongest players? Which ones? If Fifa would tell me, for them, which players are stronger than the other ones. I don’t understand that,” Guardiola said. “We’ll go with all the squad there, we don’t go for one game. I don’t know the competition right now, we don’t go for 11 players, we go for the whole squad. I don’t know how the selection that this player is stronger than the other one.
“Maybe the strongest player for them is in a really bad condition for many reasons: personal, professional, niggles, injuries. And we are going to play other ones. I’m not going to say before the game which player to play. I will decide, that’s for sure.”
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Kevin De Bruyne will again be absent for Saturday’s visit of Fulham due to a pelvic injury. As well as missing this month’s international break, he has asked Belgium to omit him from next month’s Nations League games in order to rest. “It’s not a big issue, but it still doesn’t feel good,” Guardiola said. “When you are not fit, recover because you will be fine here, and after you will be back better to the national team. That’s why Kevin, from my point of view, is the smartest, the wisest decision.”