Pep on Southgate's Foden comments

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola spoke on the comments of England manager Gareth Southgate about Phil Foden ahead of their game with West Ham

Transcript

00:00 Phil Foden told us this week that he wants to try and be one of the best players in the Premier League,

00:06 he says, "I'm going to try and show people what I can do."

00:09 And then you've also got Gareth Southgate, who during the international break questioned

00:12 whether Phil can play in the middle, and says he doesn't often do that for the club.

00:16 So, I guess a double-edged question,

00:19 what does he have to do to be one of the best in the Premier League,

00:22 and what is his ability through the middle?

00:25 First of all, we cannot be one of the best,

00:26 if your mentality is it, I don't want to be one of the best.

00:30 This is so important, when you have some target to climb,

00:36 everything starts from that, I believe in that.

00:38 And the second one, having a great relation with Gareth, any comment of me?

00:43 So, it looks like I disagree with him, and I completely agree with him.

00:47 So, in the fact that when you play outside on the midfield,

00:54 you can play a different role, but he knows I know that Phil can play in all positions up front,

00:58 in the middle, outside, right, left, in the pockets.

01:03 But as Gareth has said, the pockets have another responsibility,

01:07 especially without the ball, sometimes you have to be so smart to read what happens every moment.

01:15 But the important thing is that Phil can play in the five-position up front without a problem,

01:18 and this is a big advantage for him.

01:20 Last day, I saw the friendly game against Cotland,

01:24 they start playing in the right but move most of the time inside,

01:26 so the players move, move right, left, move inside, more outside.

01:29 So, at the end it's not a big issue, but of course when you play high on the pitch,

01:35 your responsibility defensively is less, and Phil will grow up with that,

01:40 because with the mentality, say I want to become one of the best,

01:43 has the mentality to improve all the time, he's trying to listen, to listen.

01:46 And this is a big advantage for all of us.