‘You can be a top manager and not win titles’: Pep Guardiola hails ‘excellent’ Mauricio Pochettino despite lack of trophies as Manchester City prepare for crunch Champions League clash with Paris Saint-Germain
- Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has praised Mauricio Pochettino
- He is preparing to face Pochettino’s Paris Saint-Germain side on Wednesday
- Pochettino missed out on the Ligue 1 title and Champions League last season
- Guardiola though ‘says you can be a top manager and not win titles’
- Pochettino is currently heavily linked to the Manchester United vacancy
Pep Guardiola has hailed Mauricio Pochettino as an ‘excellent manager’ ahead of Manchester City’s Champions League clash with Paris Saint-Germain.
Pochettino goes into the game with much speculation surrounding his future, with Sportsmail previously revealing that he would be willing to quit the club for Manchester United.
Questions have been raised over whether he can deliver the biggest trophies though, after he failed to win a major trophy at Tottenham and missed out on the Ligue 1 title and Champions League with PSG last season.
Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side are set to face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League
Guardiola has hailed Pochettino as an excellent manager going into the match on Wednesday
Ahead of Wednesday’s clash at the Etihad, Guardiola said: ‘You can be a top manager and not win titles.
‘The managers that have the chance to win the titles are at top, top clubs with good investments and exceptional players. Otherwise, for managers, it is impossible to win.
‘That doesn’t mean the managers in the Championship or not in the top six of the Premier League cannot be excellent managers in tactics, communication, leading. It’s not necessary to win titles.’
Pochettino missed out on the Ligue 1 title and Champions League with PSG last season
Guardiola and Pochettino have a lot of history in the Champions League, going back to Pochettino’s time at Tottenham.
Spurs dramatically knocked out City in the quarter finals of the Champions League in 2019, going through on away goals after a 4-4 aggregate.
Tottenham would qualify for the final where they eventually lost 2-0 to Liverpool.
Since then, the only trophy that Pochettino has got to his name is the Coupe De France with PSG last season.
Pochettino’s Tottenham side famously beat City in the Champions League back in 2019
City knocked out PSG last season but Lionel Messi scored in a 2-0 win for the French side in September
Guardiola though believes that Pochettino is a better manager now than the one who he faced back in 2019.
He said: ‘I’m pretty sure the managers get better. Every season we go through, you have a lot of learnings and I’m pretty sure he’s an excellent manager.’
Manchester City go into the game against PSG knowing that a win would send them through to the knockout rounds as group winners.
Guardiola’s side are keen to enact revenge on Mauricio Pochettino’s side after their 2-0 defeat at the Parc des Princes back in September.
The French giants took the victory thanks to goals from Idrissa Gueye and Lionel Messi – who scored for the first time since his summer exit from Barcelona.
