Guardiola Believes Pochettino Arrival Will Motivate Espanyol

Despite the fact that Barcelona are 35 points above Espanyol in the league, Josep Guardiola is not taking anything for granted when they meet in the Copa Del Rey this week.

The Barcelona coach will be playing most of his strongest players for the match, and with the change of coach at Espanyol today, he is wary of their opponents.

Mauricio Pochettino is the man who has replaced Mané, and even though he has no experience, Guardiola believes Espanyol will be motivated by his arrival.

"There will be a special motivation to try to convince Pochettino [that they are good players]," he told Sport .

"With Mané, we knew how they would play, but we have not seen any games with Pochettino in charge of Espanyol. Therefore, we will have to focus more than ever on our play."

Guardiola also had praise for the new coach, declaring that he was a "defender who took the lead at Espanyol, a player with good positional awareness, who read the play well," before wishing him, " a lot of luck."

On paper, it looks as though this tie should be a walkover, especially with Espanyol needing to focus on their league form. However, Guardiola knows that as it is a derby it will be tough, and he doesn't expect them to take it easy either.

"The derby is always special... As the coach I always think that every game should be played to win," he said.

"In this sense, I do not think they will be saving anything for Valladolid. We will come up against an aggressive team and we will have to be ready for them."

Surprisingly, and also possibly against the wishes of many Barcelona fans, Guardiola also declared that he hopes Espanyol do not get relegated, before calling for no more crowd trouble at the match.

"There is still a long way to go. They have 19 games to recover, and I hope they do. It is good for the league, and for Catalonia, that Barcelona and Espanyol are in La Primera. They have a new stadium now and it would be good if the derby could be played there next year," he declared.

"I hope people go to the stadium and behave as they should, not only at the Montjuic, but at any stadium, and also in life in general."

James Walker-Roberts, Goal.com