After throwing away victory against Arsenal left Manchester City ninth in the Premier League table with seven points from five games, Pep Guardiola defended his team's poor early season form. But the Spaniard's claims that his players are already "incredibly tired" did not sit well with ex-Manchester United captain Roy Keane.

Guardiola blames fatigue for dropped points

Gabriel Martinelli's stoppage time equaliser for Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium saw three points become one for Manchester City, extending a run that has seen the eight-time Premier League champions since 2011 alone take only four points from the last 12 on offer. Guardiola immediately reasoned that, after the Thursday scheduling of a Champions League clash with Napoli, fatigue and injuries are already taking hold of his squad.

"We were incredibly tired," he said. "The game against Napoli was so emotional and after that recovery day we have four or five hours to travel to London. Arsenal fought in the last two Premier League title races and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League so it's so difficult. We had a lot of fatigue with many players. We also have a lot of injuries."

AdvertisementAFPAre Man City's 'tired' complaints justified?

The trip to north London was only City's sixth game of the season. And while it's worth remembering that they were in action at the FIFA Club World Cup up until the end of June, Chelsea went further in the same competition and haven't had the same issues so far in 2025-26. Four players missed out against Arsenal because of injury, the same number that were absent from the Gunners squad. The Arsenal game saw City unusually record just 32.8% possession, the lowest of any Guardiola team in a top flight match – he'd led teams into 600 others before Sunday's clash. That lack of the ball arguably invited pressure, eventually leading to the late equaliser.

Keane pokes holes in Guardiola's defence

In his role as a pundit for , Roy Keane didn't accept Guardiola's argument.

"Pep Guardiola is on about the fatigue and the challenge to win league titles, but that is part of the challenge," the seven-time Premier League winner commented. "Im suprisied Pep [is talking about fatigue] is talking about fatigue and schedules in September, and after two home matches. They were fairly comfortable against Manchester United and Napoli had a man sent off after 20 minutes, and it's not like they have travelled from Russia or Poland after a tough away game. I didn't like that angle Pep was coming from."

Getty Images SportFour games in 12 days to come

City are quickly back in action in the Carabao Cup third round on Wednesday night, travelling into Yorkshire to face Huddersfield Town. The likelihood is that will see Guardiola heavily rotate his team, as it marks the start of a run of four games across three competitions, spanning only 12 days until the October international break. After Huddersfield, City are up against Burnley and Brentford in the Premeir League, either side of a Champions League trip to Monaco. They should be favourites to win all four games, regardless of scheduling.