Spanish coach Pep Guardiola, manager of Manchester City, spoke about his team's upcoming match against Aston Villa next Sunday, as part of the ninth round of the Premier League, referring to the status of his injured players, the difficulty of the match, and the early competition for the title.

Guardiola said about the injuries: "There is no news regarding the injuries, the absentees, including Rodri, will not be present in the match against Aston Villa, as for Nico Gonzalez, I do not know his condition yet, I have not talked with the doctors, and we will see today and tomorrow how his situation will be."

Regarding Abdelkader Khosanov, he added: "He is getting closer to being fit, but he is still not fully ready after the injury he sustained, which was in a very dangerous area of his body."

On facing Aston Villa, he continued: "Aston Villa is a very complete team, very organized defensively, and excellent in set pieces, it is difficult to control their pressure, and they break the opponent's lines very quickly, so we need to be at our best."

On the competition for the Premier League title, he confirmed: "The competition for the Premier League does not show in the early stages, you need 10 or 15 matches to understand the picture well, at the moment, the competition is between Liverpool and Arsenal, and perhaps another team will emerge over time, and I hope we will be among them."

Regarding the team's recent performance, he noted: "We are going through a good period of momentum, we have started to understand our opponents better, and we are fully aware of what we want to do, the performance is good, but we still need to improve more."

Manchester City will visit Aston Villa on Sunday evening, in a match where City aims to continue their victories and tighten the grip on the leaders of the Premier League table.