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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Man City boss Guardiola needs Hull of a boost

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Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester City’s season has hit a bump at a bad time, and a victory at home to Hull City on Saturday will help bolster their bid to play Champions League football.


City’s 2-1 defeat at leaders Chelsea on Wednesday means they have now gone more than a month without a Premier League victory.


Successive league draws against Stoke, Liverpool and Arsenal, followed by the result at Stamford Bridge, have seen City manager Pep Guardiola’s team slip to fourth place in the standings. They have also been eliminated from the Champions League by Monaco during that period, meaning that the City manager’s only realistic hope of ending his first season in England with a trophy lies with the FA Cup.


It has been a less successful campaign than many predicted when Guardiola arrived from Bayern Munich in July with a record of 21 trophies from seven seasons in management. In the Spaniard’s defence, the squad he has taken on at City does not have the spread of world-class talent that he worked with at Barcelona and in Munich, but there have been many signs that the competitive nature of the Premier League has taken him by surprise.


Amid the disappointment of defeat at Stamford Bridge, one significant bonus for Guardiola was the return to action of Vincent Kompany.


The club captain has been struck down by a series of injury setbacks over the last three years, and had not played for more than two months before making his comeback on Wednesday and completing the full 90 minutes.  — AFP


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