MY ACCOUNT
Pep Guardiola only got a grip of the danger Manchester City were in when he watched footage of the team’s aborted landing on their return from Lisbon, hailing a “magnificent” pilot.
A video posted online showed the aeroplane on which City were travelling being rocked by high winds on Wednesday afternoon as it approached Manchester Airport.
That was the effect of Storm Dudley, which has been followed by Storm Eunice, as the United Kingdom has been hit hard by inclement weather.
But Guardiola hailed a hero pilot for keeping City’s travelling party calm and negotiating a safe landing in Liverpool after struggling with the Manchester approach.
The team were on their way back from Portugal after a stunning 5-0 win at Sporting CP in the Champions League on Tuesday evening.
“To be honest, when I saw the video, I said, ‘Wow, it was more scary than we felt’,” Guardiola said on Friday.
“It was bumping a lot, like many times. It was a moment like we were going down, and immediately the engines started to roll on, and we go up, and in the moment we said, ‘Oh, something happened’.
“But we had a pilot who did incredibly well. He talked to us and was so calm and said, ‘It’s wind, so we’re going to try again to land in Manchester’. After five minutes he said we were going to land in Liverpool.
“The pilot was magnificent because we felt a little bit anxious, but thanks to the words and the way he talked to us, everyone was calm.”
Guardiola joked that City received a familiar warm welcome on Merseyside. His team and Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool are the Premier League’s current established top two.
“For sure,” said City’s manager. “Always they are so kind to us.”
Speaking in a news conference at 13:30 GMT on Friday, ahead of Saturday’s clash with Tottenham, Guardiola said his players would be heading out to train in the wind later in the day.
“We’re going to train now in two hours,” he said. “Hopefully with the wind we cannot miss players flying to the sky, so we’ll see.”
