Jose Mourinho has found an unlikely ally in Pep Guardiola after the Manchester City manager jumped to the defence of the Portuguese coach.
Mourinho and Guardiola had an acrimonious relationship when they were rival managers at Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively, but the City boss defended his rival after his tough start.
“Unfortunately it’s our job, it’s happened to me in the past, our job depends on results,” Guardiola told a news conference ahead of Saturday’s clash with Newcastle.
“When we win we are good, when we don’t we are not good, it’s simple like that. The quality of the managers I believe is when you get to that level, all the managers they are top, top managers.”
United are already six points behind early Premier League leaders Liverpool and four points behind City, but Guardiola refused to rule United out of the title race.
“They remain a great team, a top team,” he said. “We’re just in August. There are teams above us but there a lot of points to play for and after the international break the real season starts.
“We dropped two points or we won one point at Wolves. One of the secrets of last season was when we didn’t get three points, we won the next game. We didn’t get bad results two or three games on the run, which is why we got what we got last season.”
Guardiola will be looking to bounce back from the draw with Wolves against Newcastle — against whom City have won their last nine Premier League home games.
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