Previous games against teams led by Pep Guardiola are not relevant to Saturday’s Manchester derby, insisted United manager Jose Mourinho.
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And the Catalan says he has so far avoided the hype ahead of the lunchtime kick off at Old Trafford. For us it is a game.
Fans from the red and blue halves of the city will flock to the Theatre of Dreams hoping their weekend won’t turn into a total nightmare.
Nothing much happens in global week, so if it means four days of raking over the past to fill the void before derby day, then so be it.
That’s because Mourinho and Guardiola are in town and about to experience their first taste of this powderkeg fixture.
But come kick-off all eyes will be fixed on the two managers who have taken winning trophies and falling out to a whole new level.
Guardiola also said he would be happy to go for a post-match glass of wine with Mourinho, if the Portuguese invites him as the manager of the home team.
The United boss said: “You want stories, but I don’t have stories for you”.
The build up to the first Premier League meeting between the pair has been dominated by their personal rivalry.
“We met in the Premier League meeting, you want a fight, but the fight is (Kell) Brook against the Russian guy (Gennady Golovkin), it’s not us”.
“Barcelona is Barcelona, it’s not Manchester City”.
“The drink is important?” “Jose and I don’t play, I’m sorry, so when you [say] Lendl and McEnroe, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, or Federer and Nadal or Djokovic, that is important”.
“When you see Zlatan up close, he’s even more imposing than on the television”, De Gea told the Guardian. If we don’t do, it is because we have other things to do. Because we don’t have a problem. Because we don’t have a problem. I want to be there at the end, not at the beginning. We have different objectives. I have nothing to say to you. “I always try to learn from all my colleagues and I learn from him as well”. I want to beat them and they want to beat me.
The battle between Guardiola’s Barca side and Mourinho at Real Madrid encapsulated onlookers for several years, making the renewal of hostilities as Manchester City and Manchester United managers as exciting as it is intriguing. “Another one is if he decides to play, for example, with (David) Silva as a fake number nine in between the lines”.
“I don’t know what is going to happen”.
“I said many times, when I was a player, the big players made me a better player and the best managers make me a better manager”, said the 45-year-old.
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“I spend my time with my players”. So they are what they are since I returned to England in 2013. “I can’t see a point where there’s any advantage or disadvantage because our teams have played so many times in the past”. It doesn’t belong to me or Jose. Believe me, it’s on the pitch, with the players, the bigger stars.
