Pep Guardiola makes request to Man City fans ahead of Arsenal encounter

Pep Guardiola has called for Manchester City’s fans to fill up the Etihad ‘three hours’ before their Premier League encounter against Arsenal on Wednesday.

The game has been billed as a potential title-decider with leaders Arsenal five points clear of City in the table, although the Gunners have played two matches more. Mikel Arteta’s men drew 3-3 with Southampton on Friday which means City can afford to draw and the title will still be in their hands.

But Guardiola will be targeting a win that could inflict a serious blow to his rival’s hopes of winning a first title since 2004, and he’s called on City’s supporters to create a raucous atmosphere on Wednesday, adding he needs them to create ‘incredible noise’.

“Of course the momentum is key, it doesn’t matter if you play every three or four days if you are winning, winning,” Guardiola said, when asked about the title race. “In Munich we could not play at our level, but credit to our opponent because for many reasons it was not our level.

“It’s really important the final we have on Wednesday – it is a final – against a team who has been the best team in England so far, they are five points ahead of us. Hopefully all of Manchester that day will be blue and they can come to support us. We need incredible noise from the first minute to the last as I know which opponent we are going to play against.

“Even though they [Arsenal] draw the last three games, the way they play is difficult to stop. You have to read exactly what you have to do but it’s a massively important game for us. If we win it’s a step to getting it completely in our hands and the Premier League is 11 months, working, working.

“We have this opportunity and we want to take it. Hopefully the whole of the Etihad will be full three hours before.”

Having dropped just points in just six of their first 29 league matches of the season, Arsenal head into the game on the back of three successive draws against Liverpool, West Ham United and Southampton. However, Guardiola said that’s not a shock given how many sides still have something on the line in the final weeks of the season.

“I would say that they went to Anfield and got a result – that’s not easy. You can drop points there as we know – we won once in the six or seven years I’ve been here. I know how difficult that is. When you play teams like West Ham, they are fighting to survive and it’s difficult for everyone.

“So the results were tight, everyone plays for something, Champions League, Europa League, staying up. It’s difficult and of course it can happen to us. The momentum can go and we can lose. So we go game by game.”