Pep Guardiola issues plea to Man City supporters ahead of Newcastle United clash

Pep Guardiola has called on Manchester City supporters to be behind his side ‘from the first minute until the end’ in Saturday’s home game against Newcastle United.

The treble winners at back at the Etihad Stadium for the first time since they completed a historic treble win with a Champions League Final victory against Serie A giants Inter Milan in June.

City kicked off their Premier League season with a clinical performance in a 3-0 win at Burnley and they will look to build on that win by seeing off a Magpies side that always got their season off to a winning start with a 5-1 demolition of Aston Villa last weekend.

Guardiola described Eddie Howe’s side as ‘an extraordinary team’ and urged the City supporters to back his players throughout an eagerly anticipated 90 minutes.

He explained: “In football and in sport, always there are problem and how you overcome (them) defines if you are a good team or not.

“I never do this but we need our people more than ever, especially this season. So we can not be in the Etihad Stadium just looking at how good we are because of what we have done. We need them. 8pm is a good time to take beer before the game and we need them from the first minute until the end because we play against an extraordinary team that continue to do really well since they brought perfect players for the way they play.”

Guardiola has been critical of the Premier League’s scheduling of the fixture as his side host the Magpies just three days after securing the UEFA Super Cup with a penalty shoot-out win against La Liga club Sevilla.

The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich hoss urged the Etihad faithful to help his side through a ‘bad moment’ and bring their ‘noise and support’ to boost their hopes of claiming a win over Eddie Howe’s men.

He said: “Tomorrow hopefully we will have the stadium full. Stay with us please because we are not in our best moment. Especially in our bad moment please stay with us because we need the noise and support. It’s the first time that we have joined together after the FA Cup final against United and the Champions League final against Inter Milan, after Sevilla. It is the first time we come back and hopefully we will come back and we can celebrate together.”