Eurovision Song Contest in Pep Guardiola’s sights as he questions Manchester City schedule – ‘I don’t understand’

Eurovision will be taking a lot of eyeballs this weekend, but Pep Guardiola may not be tuning in after referencing the song contest when complaining about Manchester City’s schedule.

Guardiola’s side face Real Madrid in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final on Wednesday, which is three days after they take on Everton at Goodison Park in the Premier League.

City had asked to play Everton on Saturday, but the presence of the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool on the same day ruled that out.

Merseyside Police did not have enough officers to cover a Premier League football match on the same day as the musical extravaganza, much to Guardiola’s frustration.

“I don’t want to be distracted by Real because we have time – not much time because we play Sunday, thank you so much… but the Goodison Park game is a priority,” Guardiola said.

“I don’t understand it but I don’t want a fight on that any more. I don’t understand but we have to adapt to it.

“We don’t fight on the schedule from the Premier League, UEFA and so on. It’s not frustrating – how many times can I comment on that? I’m pretty sure that La Liga and the Premier League want to help teams, I don’t think they want to make us uncomfortable.

“It is the schedule with this amount of games that is the problem. We couldn’t play on Saturday because of Eurovision in Liverpool and we don’t have enough police to do two events at the same time.”

Guardiola suggested his preference would be for the Premier League to be as flexible as other European leagues.

“We would prefer to have more time to prepare but it is what it is,” the City boss said.

“It’s not like in France or Germany where they play on Friday [when teams are in Europe the following midweek]. Here, the Premier League is more important and the schedule is the schedule.

“We cannot swap. I felt it since day one and it’s not going to change.”