Pep Guardiola believes the Premier League is tougher than ever before, despite some fan and media attempts to play down the strength of the competition.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Arsenal’s position at the top of the Premier League, there have been some recent suggestions that the competition isn’t as strong as it has been in previous campaigns.
Pep Guardiola hit back against these claims in a recent press conference, insisting that the Premier League is actually stronger than it’s ever been before.
“The only problem in today’s modern football, especially in the Premier League, is just the fact that when you play in all competitions, you have to have players fit,” Guardiola said.
“When you don’t have this, nobody can survive. It’s impossible. The Premier League is tougher than ever. FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Champions League… and Champions League is more games.
“Every game is tougher. So when you have injuries, you pray and survive.”
It’s pretty hard to argue that the Premier League isn’t strong at the moment, particularly when you look at the Champions League.
Teams that are massively underperforming domestically, like Tottenham Hotspur or Newcastle United, have walked through to the knockout stages in Europe with the minimum of fuss.
Spurs actually finished fourth in the Champions League’s League Phase, despite sitting 16th and under threat of relegation in the Premier League.
Arsenal won eight games from eight to finish top of the table, with Bayern Munich the only foreign club to get within seven points of Mikel Arteta’s side.
Nottingham Forest are even closer to the Premier League relegation zone than Spurs, just four goals clear of West Ham United as it stands. Yet they’re in the last-16 of the Europa League, and they took a point away to Guardiola’s City earlier this week.
In fact, none of the nine English teams across the Champions League, Europa League, and the Europa Conference League have been eliminated at the time of writing.
The Premier League is stacked with teams that can compete with Europe’s best, resulting in a struggle for domestic results every single weekend. Any suggestions to the contrary are simply examples of denial from fans who don’t like the team currently coming out on top.