Pep Guardiola braced for reunion he'd rather avoid at Newcastle vs Man City

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Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has a number of concerns ahead of their FA Cup fifth round tie against Newcastle

Pep Guardiola has been fed up with the refereeing calls that have gone against Manchester City, and on Saturday faces the same official that left him fuming at St James' Park earlier this season. Sam Barrott will be in the middle for the FA Cup fifth round clash, months after leaving the City boss enraged with three decisions.

It was Barrott who did not give Phil Foden a penalty when Fabian Schar crunched him in the box, nor Jeremy Doku when his shot hit Malick Thiaw's hand. Those decisions were supported by the VAR team, who then deemed that the Newcastle winner was onside; in January in the Carabao Cup, Antoine Semenyo had a goal ruled out by the VAR officials after a six-minute delay that caused Guardiola to air all of his grievances.

Barrott has only taken charge of one City game since - the Carabao Cup win over Brentford in December - but Guardiola had already clocked that he would be seeing the ref again on Saturday when he spoke to reporters on Friday. "We have the same one. Thank you so much. It’s good," he said.

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Guardiola is also braced for a tough week with little recovery before they head to Madrid for the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie. City would prefer to have more preparation - Real's game was moved forward to help them - but Guardiola is used to not getting any preferential treatment in England.

"Recovery is massively important. The rest, the sleep, the food, the training, we know how we can handle it," he said. "Of course, when we arrive early at home, it's better than late for the recovery. But it's what it is. We never have data about one being better than the other.

"For here in England it is more important what happened in the Carabao Cup than the Champions League games for the English teams. It happened since day one. So it's no surprise. I don't ask for anything and if we play at 8pm, we're going to play at 8pm. We have to travel.

"We sleep tonight and you have a few more hours recovery from the previous game against Nottingham Forest. So it's what it is. I don't pay much attention to that. I can stay here, I could do that, but I give up. A long time ago. Because when we won the Treble it was completely the same. So I'm not going to call.

"I'm not a guy who called the referees the day after to say ‘why did you do this, why did you do that’. Never have in 10 years. I know a lot of my colleagues do that. I know the colleagues from all generations do that. I'm not wasting my time on that. Nothing. In the schedule, the broadcasters decide because they say, we pay a lot of money. Okay, well done, I got a lot of money. Thank you so much. You're so kind. So it's that."