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14th May 2024
10:32am BST
Arsenal fans who had planned to set off fireworks outside Man City's hotel ended up making an embarrassing mistake when it came to light that the team weren't actually staying there.
After the hotel where the City squad were staying was allegedly 'leaked' online, Arsenal fans were quick to try and disrupt the sleep of the players ahead of their match with Spurs this evening (Tuesday).
The match has huge consequences for the Premier League title race. If City win, they claw back a two-point lead against Arsenal ahead of the final round of matches on Sunday. Anything other than a win for the northerners will give the advantage to Arsenal, even if they do have a game in hand.
With this knowledge in mind, some over-zealous Arsenal fans didn't fancy relying on their north London rivals to keep City at bay, and tried to take matters into their own hands.
They travelled to the apparent location where the City squad were sleeping ahead of today's game, and set off fireworks to disrupt the sleep of the players in the hope it would affect their on-pitch performance.
According to Metro, the hotel fire alarm was also set off in the early hours of the morning, to the chagrin of hotel guests.
Not among the guests though, were their intended victims. The City squad were apparently not at the hotel, and slept soundly all the way up in Manchester last night before travelling down to London today for the game.
When asked yesterday whether he was feeling the pressure of 'squeeky bum time' ahead of today's game, Pep was perplexed and didn't even know what the phrase meant.
Upon explanation, Pep said: "Now, no, and now I have to tell the players, introduce Tottenham [and] the game we expect we are going to play. But tomorrow we will feel the tension and the nerves. Of course, I will feel it, otherwise it would be a bad sign.
“Every game I feel the right tension but [I focus on] the opponents, focus on what they [the players] have to do, read what will happen in the game and then don’t be so excited, take bad decisions and make my players a little bit anxious – because of my behaviour sometimes it happens, unfortunately for me and the team.
“The rest I’m fine, just to be calm, to take the right decisions. I have always been, even in September, October, November.
"I don’t think any football player or manager is so relaxed to think it doesn’t matter.
"We know what we’re playing for: it’s a knockout, like a quarter-final, semi-final second leg of the Champions League or FA Cup. Simple: win, OK; lose, bye-bye. It’s not much more complicated than that."
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