Pep Guardiola says Manchester City's poor performance needs to be put into context as he prepares for another difficult trip to face Aston Villa.
Guardiola led City to the last four Premier League titles, and six of the last seven.
Despite this, this season has seen just one win in 11 matches, as City slip to fifth in the league table, behind Nottingham Forest and two points behind Villa.
Guardiola said: “I deal with the good moments, and I deal with the bad moments. I have faced bad things in my career as a coach but we managed to come back and now it takes longer.
“I have experience with that. I've had 40 bad days in terms of results, that's the truth when you compare it to eight years and it's much better. We've had eight years of amazing (results) and now we've had 40-45 days of (bad results).
Pep 💬 Manuel (Akanji) and John (Stones) are back in training. This is good for us…
I don't know yet (if they'll start on Saturday). Yesterday was their first training session. pic.twitter.com/nRdNHj134D
– Manchester City (@ManCity) December 20, 2024
“I'm fine. I'm a normal person with feelings like all of us. When things are going well, we're better, and when things aren't going well professionally, we're more (focused) on what we have to do.”
Villa finished in fourth place last season and face another challenge for top four with an impressive Champions League campaign that saw victories over Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig.
Guardiola says their success under Unai Emery is no surprise.
“I'm not surprised,” he said. “Top, excellent manager. (They did well) in qualifying for the Champions League and the results in the Champions League speak for themselves.
“They are handling it well because when I have been at many clubs dealing with both competitions, they have done a really good job.”
