![\"Manchester](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2.82749321.jpg\")
Pep Lijnders, left, spoke to the media in place of Pep Guardiola (Mike Egerton\/PA)<\/p>\nThe City boss was due to hold a lunchtime press conference to preview Sunday\u2019s Premier League game against Tottenham but assistant boss Pep Lijnders took his place.<\/p>\n
City have not provided details of Guardiola\u2019s absence but he was expected to travel back to the UK on Friday and oversee training on Saturday as planned.<\/p>\n
Pep Lijnders, left, spoke to the media in place of Pep Guardiola (Mike Egerton\/PA)<\/p>\n
Lijnders said: \u201cThe manager is good, as always, full of ambition and passion but it is a personal matter. He will arrive back here in Manchester today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guardiola also missed a pre-match press conference because of a personal matter last month. Another of his backroom staff, Kolo Toure, filled in on that occasion.<\/p>\n
Lijnders, formerly assistant to Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool, previously carried out media interviews on Guardiola\u2019s behalf after City\u2019s FA Cup third-round victory over Exeter on January 10. Guardiola had watched that game from the stands as he served a touchline ban.<\/p>\n
Lijnders confirmed the club are supporting defender Ruben Dias after the home he shares with his partner, TV presenter Maya Jama, was burgled this week.<\/p>\n
Neither were at the property at the time with Dias, who is currently injured, watching City\u2019s Champions League clash with Galatasaray on Wednesday and Jama working abroad.<\/p>\n
Lijnders said: \u201cI didn\u2019t speak with him personally but Ruben will come back on Monday to team training.<\/p>\n
![\"Manchester](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2.81738317.jpg\")
Ruben Dias\u2019 home was burgled this week (Nigel French\/PA)<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the things you don\u2019t want to happen. We will support him and let\u2019s see how it goes from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winger Jeremy Doku is now sidelined after suffering a calf injury during the 2-0 win over Galatasaray, which saw City qualify for the last 16 of the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Lijnders said: \u201cIt\u2019s a similar injury as the last one which took 18 days. I presume this will be a little shorter but we will see. Jeremy is a robust player.\u201d<\/p>\n
City cut Arsenal\u2019s lead at the top of the Premier League to four points last weekend and Lijnders is hoping they can keep the pressure on the Gunners.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman said: \u201cI\u2019ve been in a few title races and it\u2019s always about just focusing on the next game.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to win your own games, create your own path, challenge yourselves to grow and do things better that you can control.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this you have to put pressure, chase and go behind them. They have to feel us and that is possible only by winning football matches.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City boss was due to hold a lunchtime press conference to preview Sunday\u2019s Premier League game against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-100788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}