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Pep Guardiola joked he had stayed up all night coming up with a tactical masterplan to outwit Eddie Howe in the Carabao Cup semi-final.
Manchester City face holders Newcastle at St James’ Park on Tuesday and Howe had said: “Pep will tactically have something ready for us.”
And Guardiola responded by quipping: “I didn’t sleep tonight thinking how my genius can create something for Eddie Howe.”
But Guardiola is expecting a difficult game. “Since Eddie Howe took over, look how many games won in the last minutes,” he said. “The pride is there, the crowd pushes. It has always been like that in this stadium.”
Guardiola has won the competition a joint record four times but has said he always thought the semi-final should be a one-legged affair.
He is waiting to discover whether he will be able to pick Rayan Ait-Nouri after the Algeria international arrived back late from the African Cup of Nations because he missed his flight.
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Rayan Ait-Nouri, right, is back after Algeria were knocked out of the Africa Cup of Nations (Bradley Collyer/PA Wire)
“Rayan Ait-Nouri has come back from Afcon but unfortunately lost the connection so arrived a little bit late,” said Guardiola. “We will see in the training sessions how he feels and don’t want to take risks of players getting injured again.”
He has no new injury concerns but will again be without Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol, John Stones and Savinho, while Omar Marmoush remains at Afcon.