Pep Guardiola seems very excited about the prospect of playing Stoke on a windy Monday night.
The new Manchester City boss was unveiled to the media today in his first press conference. If it's anything to go by in the future, Guardiola press conferences will be very interesting in the future. He was very forthcoming, and you felt like you gained a lot of insight into the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager.
Guardiola said that he wanted to challenge himself, that's why he's coming to England. He's never experienced football on Boxing Day:
I never played on a Boxing Day. I have never been to a stadium where it is windy and freezing and the pitch is not good.
It's a target for me. I want to prove myself here.
In amongst his ambition to play against Stoke, Guardiola had some intriguing comments on the future of Raheem Sterling.
The winger has been heavily criticised by all comers after a bad Euros bookended a poor season for City. Joey Barton even went as far as saying that he wouldn't be a professional footballer without his pace, and hinted that he didn't think Guardiola would want to work with him.
On the contrary, Guardiola is 'curious' about working with Sterling. The Spaniard said that he wants to have an English feel to his City team, after building Bayern around Germans, and Barcelona with Spaniards. He did acknowledge that English players are much more expensive, so he's looking forward to working with Joe Hart and Sterling.
Pep did say he was aware of all of the flak that Sterling has been taking:
I hear over the last week or 10 days what happened with Sterling. Of course, he has a problem that the money they paid for him is always in the mind of the people.
But I’m curious. I’m looking forward to working with him to try to help him show again how good a player he is.
Not just with Sterling, but with Joe Hart and the other English players.
In Barcelona, the basis was Catalan and Spanish players, in Bayern Munich it was Germany and I would like to work with an English basis here.
But they’re so expensive, more than the players around the world. It’s not easy, but, it’s not just about Joe or Raheem, I will, of course, try to help them.
Maybe the future isn't so bleak for Sterling as it seemed last week.
You can watch the full press conference which starts at 8.10 below:
