It will be a great night for everyone involved
The new season will see our manager Vincent Kompany come up against opposition managers for the first time but that will not be the case tonight with his own former boss Pep Guardiola in the away dug out.
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola, who took his side to a treble last season, said: “It feels like it finished yesterday but we start again from zero and try to play game by game. In September you don’t think about the title. But our level, day-by-day we will try to be better than the day before and go for it. We’re here so we’ll try.
He added: “Normally, the first games are difficult, especially against newly promoted teams because they have nothing to lose, they have the energy and the dream for a good season.
“Vinny knows us well and has done an incredible job, changing the way Burnley played for the last few years with Sean Dyche. He destroyed the Championship, since day one it was win, win, win and it’s so difficult in this competition. He’s done an incredible job. So with the style from Vinny, it will be a tough game, especially at the beginning, it’s so difficult. You sometimes need time to reset, but we have to come back the way we were. It’s a question of time.”
Kompany, who recently described Guardiola as the best manager he ever played against, came up against his mentor in last season’s FA Cup but now makes his Premier League bow as a manager against him.
He said: “We play against such a good opponent, a team filled with players and people that I know, of course, but probably the best challenge you could ever have, you could ever ask for.
“It will be a great night for everyone involved at a sold out Turf Moor and I want the team to embrace this game and hopefully the fans can do the same.
“The start of the season is always about building cohesion as fast as you can and without it costing too many results but we’ve been through it before so we know what we have to be cautious about and we’ll also have the opportunities once we’ve gone through it.”
Looking at our opponents, he added: “We are well aware of the threats that City have and how strong of a side they are and we need to be at it. It has been an awkward month or so with congratulations flying back and forth between a lot of the people I know there. They won the league, then FA Cup, then Champions League. They are people I have worked and lived with many years of my life. The contact will always be there.
“Now we have to put everything behind us and go toe to toe. We will try to do the best we can. Our concern is starting the league with everyone on zero points, so we have to get the best of ourselves and that is what we care about.”
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