Guardiola Professes Love for Barcelona While Defending Arteta’s Move to Arsenal

• Pep Guardiola and his former assistant Mikel Arteta will face off in their first encounter of the season tomorrow
• The Arsenal boss was assistant at City for three years before the Gunners came calling
• The two are battling for the league title this season and Guardiola claims he would have done the same like Arteta

Mikel Arteta learned under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City for three years before Arsenal called him to a permanent role after Unai Emery was sacked and Freddie Ljungberg played interim for a while.

He won the FA Cup and Community Shield a few months into the job. That feat and the patience of the Arsenal board bought him time to build a squad that is currently top of the Premier League table.

Pep Guardiola has now opened up on the love Arteta has for the club he made history with by winning the FA Cup as a captain and as a head coach, as revealed by Goal.

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Guardiola exposed Arteta's love for Arsenal

Speaking ahead of the FA Cup 4th round tie at the Etihad Stadium tomorrow, as quoted by Football Espana, Pep opened up on how much the former Everton player loved the Gunners even when he was his assistant.

“When Arteta was my assistant at City, he celebrated all the goals madly except the ones against Arsenal. He loved Arsenal,” he said.

The former Barcelona player and manager did not hide his love for a club that brought him to the spotlight, claiming he would have done the same Arteta did if he was an assistant.

“It’s like my relationship with Barça. If I were an assistant coach and Barca called me, I will go, it’s my club,” he added.

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Guardiola was promoted to senior team manager from Barcelona B head coach in 2008 and won 14 trophies in four years with the Blaugrana with Lionel Messi as his star player.

Guardiola told to drop Haaland

Ahead of tomorrow's tie against Arsenal, Guardiola has been advised to drop Haaland from the starting XI and experiment with the team without the Norwegian, as Sports Brief earlier reported.

The goal machine is yet to make his FA Cup debut, he was an unused substitute in the 4-0 win over Chelsea, with World Cup winner Julian Alvarez trusted to lead the line.

Pep is expected to name a strong eleven against Arsenal tomorrow, as it is a Premier League match and a clash of top two teams in the league and would not like to gamble like he did in the Carabao Cup elimination to Southampton.