Roy Keane had little sympathy with Pep Guardiola over the Manchester City manager’s comments regarding his team’s schedule following Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Arsenal.
Guardiola felt his players showed the effects of a busy week that also included last weekend’s derby and a Champions League clash with Napoli.
“Hats off to the team, their resilience,” he said on Sky Sports, after seeing Erling Haaland’s early opener cancelled out by Gabriel Martinelli’s stoppage-time strike.
“To score is so difficult when you’re not effective at high pressing, you’re not effective in the build-up.
“The mindset has to be strong but we have a lot of fatigue with the same players, we have you know how many injured.”
Asked why he felt his team were not effective, he said: “(Arsenal) were better and we were incredibly tired. Sometimes people don’t realise, the game against Napoli in the Champions League was so emotional, after that a recovery day and the day after you have to (travel) four, five hours (to London).”
Pressed on his feelings regarding the schedule, he said: “But if you want to bring up the fact that now I’m complaining for the schedule, OK. OK, I’m complaining for the schedule! Are you satisfied? OK…!”
Former Manchester United captain Keane, speaking as a pundit on Sky Sports, responded: “If you’re talking about fatigue and schedules, we’re in September and they’re on the back of two home matches.
“The United game they were fairly comfortable, Napoli had a man sent off after 20 minutes. They’ve not travelled from Russia or Poland when you’ve had a tough away game. We all know the challenges of being a footballer is being robust and playing two or three games a week.
“We look at their players on the bench, I’m sure there must be other managers in the Premier League looking at Pep thinking, ‘Pep, if you think you’ve got problems with schedules and the strength in depth, my goodness’. I didn’t like that angle Pep was coming from.”
