Arsene Wenger doesn’t think speculation surrounding Manuel Pellegrini’s future at Manchester City will have an impact on Monday night’s game.
Pep Guardiola will announce next week whether he is to stay on at Bayern Munich or if he will see out his current contract and move on in the summer – paving the way for a Premier League club to make a beeline for his services.
City are desperate to sign Guardiola and are hotly tipped to be the Spaniard’s next club with Manchester United sticking with Louis Van Gaal, but Wenger played down such talk.
I don’t know if that’s to City.
That’s down to media speculation and I don’t know where that comes from.
It’s very difficult to master nowadays, to have this kind of speculation. If you look at Real Madrid, there is always speculation. It looks like it’s part of our job now.
The rumours linking Guardiola to City come at a bad time for the incumbent manager at the Etihad ahead of what is a massive game between title rivals at the Emirates Stadium.
With half the season still left to play out it isn’t quite a title decider, however, the psychological boost for the winner will be significant heading into the Christmas fixtures.
Wenger was hastened to play down the effect for his opposite number in the circumstances of potentially losing his job at the end of the season.
It can be [destabilising] but Pellegrini is experienced enough to deal with it. Maybe if it was a very young beginner, it could be destabilising but I don’t think that at his level it will affect him.
I believe that what will be an advantage to us is to focus on our performance and not hope for any weakness from City. We go into a top-level game where all the rest will be forgotten and everybody else will just focus on the performance on the day.
