Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has confessed that he is not expecting a repeat of Liverpool's 5-0 thumping win over Manchester United when the two sides meet in the derby on Saturday.
Many critics expected United to come undone against a top side this season, and Liverpool proved them right as they waltzed to the easiest of 5-0 victories which very nearly cost Ole Gunnar Solskjaer his job.
City are obviously of similar pedigree to Liverpool, but ahead of the game, Guardiola was adamant that he's not banking on a walkover win of his own.
“We do not have the quality to play like Liverpool play so we play a different way,” the manager said (via The Guardian). “Football is not ‘copy paste’.
"After this defeat they changed the setup [to 3-5-2] against Tottenham and it worked, and kept it against Atalanta, but after they got an injury to Raphael Varane they changed back to a four. We will see on Saturday what they will do.
"If you want to do it like Liverpool you want Jurgen Klopp, [Sadio] Mane and [Mohamed] Salah to come. We cannot play like they play because we have different players and different ways to play. If you see in the last four, five or six years in the Premier League, looking at the games played by Liverpool and City you know we play differently.
“We are going to try to do our game as a team but we have different qualities in a different way. Maybe right now if United played Liverpool they would play in a different way and it would not be the same result as last time because everyone learns in football.”
Guardiola was clearly trying to remain conservative and humble, but midfielder Bernardo Silva was having none of it and backed City to put a handful of goals past United.
"We have scored so many goals this season already," Silva said (via the Daily Mail). "We know that when we are focused and do well, we are a team that has the capacity to score four or five goals per game.
"Of course, that doesn't happen in all the games. We are going to try to score as many goals as we can in Old Trafford, knowing that we play against a very good team, one of the main contenders.
"Both teams need to win - nobody wants to drop points," he added. 'We're five points behind Chelsea, United are eight points behind.
"I always have the feeling that we play better away than at home against them. I don't know if it's just in my head but I always think that most of the games we've won were at Old Trafford. With players like [Edinson] Cavani and [Cristiano] Ronaldo: when they have chances, they're lethal. They don't need much space to score."
Source : 90min