Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has admitted that he doesn't know how is going to deal with his wealth of attacking options, stating that the forwards have to "compete with each other" ahead of Monday's clash with Everton.
Cannot have 11 players in attack
Guardiola is determined to deliver the Premier League title to the Etihad Stadium in his second season especially after his debut campaign in Eastlands, he has done that through the transfer window breaking the £200million mark this summer especially in the attacking options with the acquisition of Bernardo Silva from Monaco.
The arrival of the Portugal international only adds to selection headache that Guardiola has in terms of his attacking options, with the likes of; Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sané, Silva, Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva, Yaya Touré, Ilkay Gündogan and Sergio Agüero all available for Monday's clash with Ronald Koeman's men.
Their attacking overload was evidenced in their 2-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion with five out of the possible seven substitutes been considered attacking-minded options, Guardiola could make a full XI for just five spots in his side depending on formation and the coach stated that his players will have to fight for places throughout the season.
“I don’t know," Guardiola admitted in his pre-match press conference in reference to his selection headache. "Hopefully, they can understand that."
"Hopefully they will understand that at the big clubs you cannot have 11 players [in attack]," the coach stated. "So they have to compete with each other."
"For example, the last game in Brighton, Leroy [Sané] didn’t play from the beginning," the Catalan highlighted. "It was a key point and I changed our dynamic a little bit in front."
“We have many strikers, but we need this," the 46-year-old said. "We have four competitions and a lot of games."
"If we would play just one game a week, we would have less, not too many players," Guardiola added. "But with the competitions, we need all of them.”
Has to respect what is happening with the club
City have had a perfect record thus far at the beginning of the season with Agüero's strike and an own goal from Lewis Dunk gave them a win on the coast, but the clanger from Dunk caused some controversy on social media.
There is one City summer signing that has yet to make his debut which is defensive world-record signing Benjamin Mendy, the former Monaco full-back has been continuing his recovery from a knee injury but got a lot of backlash on social media for a tweet about the clash with Chris Houghton's side.
The French international tweeted: "bullet header" with crying with laughter emojis in refernece to Dunk's effort which received criticism from the likes of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, Mendy has subsequently apologised but Guardiola came to the defence of his summer signing stating that the people in his squad are "nice people".
"I don’t know what happened," he said in reference to Mendy's controversial tweet. "I don’t what he said. The private life is private life."
"He has to respect the social media in what is happening with the club and the opponent," Guardiola concluded. "But I think the guys in squad they are so, so good - good people and nice people."