The Citizens’ boss reflected on his assistant’s contribution during his reign at the club so far.
Mikel Arteta has been tipped by Pep Guardiola as his successor at Manchester City. The former Arsenal and Everton midfielder is assisting the Spanish manager ever since he has joined City.
The Spanish assistant manager Arteta has been praised by many for his work at City, and he was tipped to succeed Arsene Wenger when he left Arsenal in 2018.
“I’m pretty sure [he’ll succeed me]. He will have success,” he said.
“Sooner or later it’s going to happen (Arteta becoming a manager). He’s a young, young manager. He has experience already, handling big players and big teams.
“He’s got an incredible work ethic. He has a special talent to analyse what happens and to find solutions.
“We talk a lot about what he believes and how he feels.”
Adding more on Arteta’s love for the club, Guardiola said that he feels the suffering of his deputy when his team doesn’t perform well and the happiness of him when the team does perform well. He also assured that the Spanish is an incredible manager and would turn out to be a good choice.
“He’s a guy who’s so happy when we win but also suffers a lot when we don’t.
“He’s an incredible person, an incredible human being, with incredible values about the dressing room and what it means to be together.
“He’s already an incredible, incredible manager. He will have incredible success in the future.”
The former Spanish holding midfielder comes in with lots of experience of Premier League and has represented two clubs in the league, as aforesaid.
“He’s helped a lot. Especially in the first year when we played Stoke and whatever – he knew the players we were going to face better than we because he played a lot against them.”
Guardiola also believes that him being a holding midfielder during his playing days gives him a special ability to read the game and situations in a much better way than others. He is of the opinion that the best midfielders have the ability of reading the need of the situation in a better way than others.
Having said that, Guardiola also believes that Arteta was a teriffic midfielder and that even adds on to the advantage.
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“He was a holding-midfielder too and I think he reads the situations.
“The best [midfielders] play thinking about what the team needs in every single moment. He was a master of that. When he was able to see what was needed on the pitch, when you’re off the pitch it’s easier.”