Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is looking forward to facing his neighbours Salford City in their FA Cup third-round clash on Saturday.
The match between the two Manchester sides is expected to have extra spice, with Salford owned by former Manchester United players Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and David Beckham.
Guardiola told a news conference on Friday he expected a tough challenge against his own local side.
“I’m living in Salford the last eight years so I play against my neighbourhood, where I’m living,” Guardiola said.
“[I have] a lot of respect for manager [Karl Robinson]. Six games, six clean sheets, six victories. We take it seriously of course like we have done at this club since I arrive and hopefully we can do a good game and make it three wins in a row. A long time that didn’t happen.
Asked about the influence of the ex-United players, Guardiola said: “Well they won a lot of titles, the generation of players, they won a lot of money they can buy teams so that’s good.
“They are smart people. When people from football run football clubs [they] always take smart decisions.”
Guardiola moved to shut down any talk of transfers on Friday, with City linked to several players in the January window.
Sources have told ESPN that the club are interested in Palmeiras centre-back Vitor Reis, as well as Lens defender Abdukodir Khusanov and Eintracht Frankfurt’s Omar Marmoush.
“Don’t ask me about that. All month you’re going to ask the same about all you are linking in the media so I’m not going to talk,” Guardiola said.
“I’m not going to talk because I don’t know. Of course I have conversations with the club but with the process I don’t know what’s going to happen because it’s so difficult.”
When pushed again on Marmoush, Guardiola said: “I was not clear on my answer? Come on. I was clear in my answer I’m not going to talk. It’s a player from another club. You can say every single press conference about the transfer window until the end. I’m not going to answer one question.”
Information from ESPN’s Rob Dawson contributed to this report.
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