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Pep Talk: “Winning helps to be better. The mental recovery is better,”

A good match is almost here.

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Real Madrid v Manchester City FC: Semi-Final First Leg - UEFA Champions League Photo by Alex Livesey - Danehouse/Getty Images

Manchester City face a stiff test in Everton. Pep Guardiola spoke about the match, injuries and mentality. Let’s dive straight in-

Pep on mentality

“Winning helps to be better. The mental recovery is better,”

“Always I believe human beings have incredible substance to keep moving forward. If you believe you can. At the end of the season you have to refresh for next season. You can be tired, that’s normal.

“I said it many times to the players, you are tired I know. At the same time, if you desire and are in the right position, a human being can have incredible energy that they do not believe they have.”

Pep on next match

“My thought is just Everton, no more than that.

“It’s 11 months working for the Premier League, I don’t want to be distracted for Real Madrid.

“We don’t have much time because we play Sunday. It’s a real, real priority the game at Goodison Park.”

Pep on Everton

“Goodison Park during my six seasons here always has been so difficult,” said Guardiola.

“For the environment and now for the momentum (they have). Sean Dyche is a good trainer of his team.

“It is also (difficult) because it’s between Champions League games, but my thoughts are just on Everton, no more than that. so we have to just focus on this game

“We are 11 months working for Premier League, I don’t want to be distracted by the Real Madrid game.

“Defensive structure and physicality they have at Everton is really good. Everything can happen in a football game.

“At the same time we know exactly what we are playing for. We will analyse what we have to do to beat them.

“We are for sure going to play until 3 June. Next Wednesday we have to deserve to play a game for one more week.

“We have for sure six games and potentially seven. It’s not much. Just two or three weeks until the end of the season. Go for it.”

And as for Premier League title rivals Arsenal, the boss added he fully expects Mikel Arteta’s side to win their remaining games:

“Definitely they are going to win the three games they have left,” said Pep.

“I would like the games they have against Brighton, Forest, Wolves to drop points, but with long weeks to prepare they will do it with nine points.”

A big game and City will rotate a bit to accommodate for the UCL later that week. We’ll see how it goes!