Manchester City must add fight to their match preparations if they want to progress in the Champions League quarter final against Lyon on Saturday.
That is according to defender Aymeric Laporte, who insists City are prepared after a week of training in Portugal, but that will count for nothing if they are not up for a battle against their French opposition in Lisbon.
“The team is prepared,” Laporte told reporters in the pre-match press conference, where he appeared alongside Pep Guardiola.
“We have trained since the beginning, thinking of every single game and we have prepared fantastic for the Champions League like the manager said.
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“We want to be focussed on this competition and hopefully we can beat them tomorrow and go past. We are prepared, we have a great squad and hopefully can win this competition, but tomorrow we will have to fight.”
Frenchman Laporte, who said it will be a special occasion to face a Ligue 1 side at this stage of the Champions League, highlighted the strengths of Lyon that will pose City problems.
He explained: “We know like the other teams there is a tough team. A lot of good players. We have to be focused on ourselves, be prepared and like I said before, fight until the end and try to win.
“We have to be focussed. We know that they have a very good players and focus on the game and try to score more goals than them.”
Guardiola offered his own assessment of Lyon’s threats, having seen City lose and draw to Saturday’s opponents in last season’s group stage.
“They are so tight, so incredibly aggressive in the frontal balls, so fast – the people up front, the quality of the wing backs. Good set piece takers so, yeah, a top team.
“They are in the quarter finals. We cannot expect anything else. We cannot expect any game in the quarter finals is going to be easy, that is not going to happen.”
