Guardiola: EPL is the most important title

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has insisted the English Premier League title is the most important trophy for his team to win this season, ahead of even potential Champions League success.

The runaway EPL leaders already have one piece of silverware in the bag, after winning the League Cup final in convincing fashion against Arsenal at Wembley on Sunday.

But Guardiola is far more interested in the six victories that will make the English title a mathematical certainty for City, who played the Gunners in the league this morning (Singapore time).

Ahead of the match, he said: "We are fighting for the most important title of the season by far, the Premier League.

"More important than the Champions League, more important than the FA Cup, League Cup. That is enough encouragement to be focused.

"The next six fixtures are terrible in terms of quality of the opponents, and we have four games away and we still have to win six games.

"When you think about Arsenal, you think about Chelsea... and our away games - Stoke City playing (to avoid) relegation, going to Goodison Park (Everton) is always a tough game."

After a visit to Goodison Park on March 31, City will host Manchester United on April 8 before travelling to Wembley to face Tottenham a week later.

The Catalan coach has won a total of six titles in his productive managerial career - three in Spain with Barcelona and the same number of Bundesliga championships with Bayern Munich.

Now on course for his seventh league crown in nine years of management in Europe's top divisions, Guardiola has no doubt where his priorities lie.

"The league is always the most difficult, a game every three days," he said.

"It shows how good you are over 11 months. All the titles I have won, La Liga, Bundesliga, the league is the most difficult.

"In the League Cup, we won two penalty (shoot-out) rounds, Claudio Bravo saved them, or you could be out.

"That is a toss of a coin, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

CONSISTENCY

"The league is consistency, the players know that. They know exactly how important the league is for this club, for our futures.

"Of course we have to be focused, we know how tough it will be until the end of the season."

While the league might be the priority for his manager, City captain Vincent Kompany admits that among the players, there is an unspoken quest for a Treble of the EPL, Champions League and League Cup titles.

He told Sky Sports: "We never discuss (the Treble), but what I do know from my team is that there's the desire to not just win games but dominate them; create chances, score goals.

"If we keep that up for every game, things are possible."

Key to that belief, according to the Belgian defender, is Guardiola.

Explained Kompany: "Every moment since Pep has come in we've enjoying training, learning and playing our football.

"He has a team to implement his ideas which is also crucial but it's really important to look at managers as educators.

"He's definitely improved every single player with the plan, the clarity of his vision."

There has also been clarity in how Guardiola feels about Catalonia's push for independence, with his donning of a yellow ribbon - worn in protest against the imprisonment of pro-independence politicians in his native Catalonia.

The Football Association has charged Guardiola with "wearing a political message" during league and domestic cup matches this campaign and the City boss insisted he was happy to speak to them about the matter.

He added that he would stop wearing the emblem if leading club officials want him to or if it adversely affects the team's form. -AFP