Arsene Wenger has admitted that while he doesn’t know why Manchester City are so inconsistent at the moment, he respects Pep Guardiola for sticking to his philosophy.

Speaking ahead of Arsenal’s trip to the Etihad on Sunday, the boss predictably had high praise for City’s new boss, Guardiola.

“[I expected] that Pep would bring his philosophy through and you have to accept that he tries to do that,” Wenger said.

“I respect the fact that he firstly has the philosophy and wants to play football that I respect. You expect him to put that print into his team.”

Similarly to Wenger, the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss has a strong philosophy when it comes to the football he likes his teams to play and, although City haven’t been quite the force they were predicted to be so far this season, you can’t fault the guy for sticking to his guns.

City currently sit fourth in the Premier League table, just one point behind Arsenal, having lost three matches, one of which was a shocking 3-0 loss at the hands of last season’s champions, Leicester City. The Foxes went on to lose 1-0 to Bournemouth in their next match.

However, City have won the same amount of matches as Arsenal: 10. And only drawn one less, which is where we’ve edged it by a point.

They’re not quite the disaster everyone’s painting them as.