Fernandes talk and six minutes of academy praise - Pep Guardiola mood before Man City vs Man Utd

After telling Manchester United to 'accept the reality' of their situation, Pep Guardiola was clearly in a more positive mood during the rest of the embargoed section of his press conference on Friday.

In fairness, when Guardiola gave that advice to United, he did so to tell them how to best catch Manchester City. It had been put to him that Sir Jim Ratcliffe's praise of Manchester City was the ultimate compliment from a lifelong United fan, which led to the question of whether the starting point for catching City is to accept how far behind they currently are.

As well as his punchy answer on United accepting their place in Manchester, Guardiola discussed the mentality needed for a derby, whether United captain Bruno Fernandes could play at City, and how the Blues academy is continuing to go from strength to strength.

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These are the talking points from Guardiola's press conference ahead of Sunday's derby:

Asked what he thought of Bruno Fernandes as a player, Guardiola was genuine and had no bad word to say. "Exceptional player, especially the consistency," he said. "Plays every single game in every single competition. I admire that a lot. Every time he has the ball, something will happen. Free kicks, set pieces, connections with Rashford, Garnacho, all the strikers they have there. A really important player."

Then, when Guardiola was asked if Fernandes and Luke Shaw were the only players on the United team he would take at the Etihad, the manager simply replied: "That is football fantasies. I don't like."

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