Manager Rob Edwards has given his thoughts on adjusting to being a Premier League manager, Sunday’s battle with Manchester City and his appreciation of Pep Guardiola.
“Man City are amazing,” said Edwards. “I’ve got such admiration for Guardiola as a manager, wherever he’s been he has been a winner and they have built this football club over the years, it’s incredible to see the culture they have built with the players they have.
“To continuously evolve them and keep winning, including the treble last season, everyone will now be trying to knock them off their pedestal, so it’s a big challenge for them.
“They’ve been in tight games where they could have won all of them, we know how tight games are and that’s just the nature of the Premier League.”
Following on from the agonising defeat to Arsenal on Tuesday night, Edwards acknowledges that City will be another tough fixture with one of the world’s best managers.
“It’s an exciting game for us, in my opinion City are the best and Guardiola is the best. A few years ago, when I was a coach at Wolves, I was reading Guardiola’s books, studying his Bayern Munich team and it will be quite an experience going up against him.
“It would be nice to get a bit of time after the game to pick his brains, whether there will be enough time afterwards I’m not sure, but he’s someone you can learn a lot from.”
The fans are going to be needed to give their full support once again, as they did against Arsenal and in the other home matches so far this season.
“A lot of talk before the season had been about Kenilworth Road and the role it was going to play for us, we need to continue to make it a difficult place to come, and we need to pick up more points here too.
“All of the home games have been tight, either with one goal in it or draws, so we hope that it will be similar on Sunday.
“We know the size of the task and of course we are going to respect City for what they are and who they are, but Kenilworth Road is a unique place as well.
“Against Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs, we’ve shown that we can compete against these top sides, so we’ll try to do that again.”
Edwards has adapted to life as a Premier League manager with his team, he did admit that there are aspects of it that he still needs to work on outside of the office.
“You don’t get any downtime as a Premier League manager really, it’s hard to sleep. Knowing what it means to everyone at this level and the scrutiny you get, it lives with you 24/7.
“I’ll continue to work on trying to switch off. I love the lads and would love to play them all, they all want to play and a lot of them deserve to play, but you can only pick 11, that’s the most difficult bit.”