How is Cristian Romero?
Romero won’t be right for tomorrow’s game. We are hoping he will be right for next week.
Have you spoken to Rodrigo Bentancur?
Yeah I spoke to him briefly now, he only got in late yesterday so today was the first day I saw him. He has accepted all along that he is going to take whatever penalty comes his way. At the same time, like I said yesterday, for us it is about trying to support him through that process and hopefully get through it and once the ban is over get him to be ready to contribute.
Man City have lots of players coming back from injury and Guardiola’s extended his contract, it could be a really tough game?
It is tough yeah, you are playing City at their place and they have a pretty imposing record there. Those four losses have all been away from home. Irrespective, it is always a great test and a great challenge for us to go there and see whether we can disrupt things again and hopefully put some pressure on them but we know it is never an easy task. It is great that Pep has resigned. It is fantastic for the Premier League. He keeps setting the standard which is great for all of us trying to mow him down.
How did Pep Guardiola revolutionise football?
I think in many varied and different ways. One is through a sustained excellence. It is not easy to win in different countries and I know that he has been at big clubs but again, as we have seen recently, that is not necessarily transferable to winning things all the time. You still have to do it. So he has maintained a ridiculous level of excellence. The way his team plays, they are always challenging every opponent they face and just his energy to maintain that for so long is outstanding. He will go down as one of the greats already but the indication that he has resigned probably means that there is more to come.
Are you where you were hoping you'd be at this point? How far along are you?
It's kind of mixed because we are definitely a better side than we were last year. That's what you're looking at, to progress as a football team. Within that context a lot of our players have developed more but within that context our results haven't reflected that which is a major part of what you do. You want to prove your standing in the game and our results haven't reflected that. I am still very, very bullish and excited about our progress as a team. We've just got to push on from where we are now to get that consistency that will reflect in more positive results.
Are the leaders key in your team?
Yes, that's very important. In every dressing room your leaders, are in difficult and good times, ignore the noise on both fronts. Certainly, with us, it is part of our growth. The leadership in the group is constantly challenged by them moments when we have a drop off in performance. They are the first ones to look at what they can do differently. Within that, I think you get growth and, not just with Sonny, Romero and Madders, but I think Deki is growing all the time and captained Sweden. Ben is captain of Wales, Biss is captain of Mali, we've got some leaders in there but t is making sure that the dressing room maintains its focus.
Is it sending a mixed message with Bentancur of appealing the punishment and sending potentially a bad look?
I'm not interested in looks or what people want to make....He's said he's made a mistake. We'll accept whatever penalty comes our way. We believe that the first one was a little bit harsh so we've appealed that which I think is our right. That's the whole process. Even if you look at the punishment, it's at the lower end of the scale so even the people who have all of the information have adjudicated that way.
I get that people want to burn people at the stake nowadays, but as I keep saying part of this process if you want real education and progress is to understand that when somebody makes a mistake and they pay the penalty, part of that is education and hopefully treating them in the way that people see that's a way forward, whether it's Rodrigo or anyone else.
I'm old enough in life that I've made bigger mistakes than that mate, but I was allowed to learn from them and hopefully I'm a better human being because of that.
Maybe from the outside it seems like what's the point because you can only chop off one game because six is the minimum for this kind of charge, is it really worth it so he can maybe play one game against Liverpool?
Couldn't care less who it's against but yes it's worth it because that's what we feel. We still have a judicial process. That's why appeals are there. We're not going outside the jurisdiction, we're not trying to create something that's not available to us. We think it was harsh, we think it shoulder have been the minimum and we'll go through that process. If it's deemed not then we'll accept that.
We're not going to just accept to something if we feel that it's not the right thing in terms of our process. So I'm fully supportive and we'll abide by any decision but that's why there's an appeal process.
It's been a long time coming and Ben Davies said the team have drawn a line under it, so is it a case that this issue has not affected your week at all?
No it hasn't because it's not like we've ignored it the whole way through. While on the outside it may, but internally we understand and we've been helping Rodrigo through the process of understanding it and the whole group about understanding the ramifications of making such a mistake. That's how you get progress and the whole group understands that. Is it a daily topic? No, it's not because there's a lot of other things going on but it's not like we're pretending it didn't happen. We know it happened and the appropriate people are dealing with it, we have dealt with it within the four walls of our dressing room.
Do you have to be careful with Micky van de Ven after three or four hamstring injuries within 18 months or so?
You try to treat it as it is. We'll get the advice from the medical team and the people working with him. I think there's always a natural cautiousness with somebody who has a reoccurring problem but at the same time you don't want to treat him with too many kid gloves around him because otherwise he's still go to go out there and play at some point. But it's fair to say we're taking all the appropriate steps and Micky will be a good judge of that as well and where he's at.
You've got Richarlison and Wilson out for a significant amount of time, will that force you to change your transfer plans for January?
It just depends. Again, January is always a tricky one. You don't really plan for significant things in January, but a lot of that will be dictated by how we are at that time. Obviously Wilson will be out for a fair chunk of the season, Richy hopefully will be back in the new year but similar to Micky we just need to be careful every step of the way and Mikey will still be out for a little bit of time. So, we're a little bit short there but it just depends if by January we get two or three back we may not need to but we'll kind of see as it goes.
Was Mikey Moore hit bad by that virus?
Yeah he was and because he's young as well, we just need to be careful with these things. He's back up and about, back in the building and everything, but we'll take our time with him."
Dejan Kulusevski impressed for Sweden but hurt his shoulder again for the third time in recent weeks, is that something that needs to be fixed?
No, it's nothing major and actually he's improved since he went away. Coming back today he actually feels better, it's just he's had a couple of significant knocks all in the same area in the last couple of weeks, but nothing permanent or major that needs any attention."
It's been a bad international break with the Odobert surgery, Bentancur ban, Romero injury, do you have to be on the players to make sure they are not feeling sorry for themselves with City up next?
I don't get the sense they are. Obviously it's three international breaks we've gone in on the back of a loss which is not great to deal with, but you can see with the way they've performed at international level, they've made significant impacts most of the guys that went away so that helps with their mindset to move on quickly. It's really important when they come back here again we move on pretty quickly. They understand we still have got to do our review and we did that. We looked back at the areas we need to be better, but I don't get the sense the lads are down in the dumps in any way. I think there is a determination there to get back to the level we need to be and get consistency around that.