Manchester City

Pep Guardiola wants to maintain high standards until end of season

By Daniel Lewis, Senior Reporter | 20 April 2018

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola intends to avoid an "uncomfortable" end to the season by maintaining high standards over the remaining few weeks.

Pep Guardiola has urged his Manchester City players to 'remain focused' until the end of the season as they attempt to set a number of records.

The Citizens were crowned Premier League champions last weekend in a joint-record time, getting over the line with five matches still left to play.

Guardiola admits from past experience that teams can often switch off once sealing top spot, but he hopes that the challenge of racking up a record number of wins, points and goals can help to keep standards high over the next few weeks.

"In the past I won the league at Bayern and Barcelona with five, six or seven games to go, but the next games were not good," he told reporters ahead of Sunday's meeting with Swansea City. "I was not able. What we need to do is already done. The record is not the most important thing, but maybe it can help us to be focused. It would be nice to finish well in terms of good feelings. It would be uncomfortable to finish in a bad way.

"There are still games to play and we have to respect the five opponents and the competition. Always there has to be a target. Maybe most goals and points will be a good focus. What we have done, Roberto [Mancini] and Manuel [Pellegrini] did it, they did it on the last game of the season and we did it before, but the result is the same. Now let's see how we handle it.

"The experience of this club, three Premier Leagues in seven years but after winning it not good. It's exciting to see how we'll react next season. Back-to-back titles the last decade you've seen how difficult it is. No club has done it four times, Germany it's six times, but here it's so complicated. There are a lot of contenders and it's a good challenge.

"I know how the players reacted to a bad season, but still I don't know how they react to success. That's why it's a challenge. Now it's the time to start to think about the squad, the same people, new people, new staff, new training sessions. We have to change a few things to make a step forward and that's the challenge. I am pretty sure the teams are preparing better to beat us, and if we stop they will catch us. We have to do the same, if you rest."

City, out of the FA Cup and Champions League, also face West Ham United, Huddersfield Town, Brighton & Hove Albion and Southampton before the end of the season.