Pep Lijnders replaces Pep Guardiola for Man City press conference

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola will not be fulfilling his usual media duties before Tottenham as his assistant fills in

Pep Lijnders will take over Manchester City media duties on Friday ahead of their Premier League game with Tottenham. Pep Guardiola is unavailable, so his No.2 Lijnders will be speaking to the media before the squad are back in on Saturday to continue preparations for another big Premier League test.

It is the third City press conference that Guardiola has missed in the last two months. Kolo Toure spoke to reporters last month before their Premier League game at Crystal Palace, while Lijnders took the one after the 10-1 win over Exeter in the FA Cup Final - a match that Guardiola was banned for after picking up three yellow cards in domestic competitions.

Guardiola, who spoke at an Act X Palestine event in Barcelona on Thursday evening, is still expected to take the team for their trip to Spurs but is unable to make the scheduled pre-match press conference. Lijnders will fill in before taking his usual role as City look to keep up in the Premier League title race.

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A 2-0 win over Wolves on Saturday was their first win in five games in the league, and Arsenal's home defeat to United means that the gap at the top of the table is reduced to four points with 15 games to go. The Gunners can extend that again at Leeds on Saturday, but City have taken encouragement from Arsenal's inability to stretch ahead this month.

"In my experience here in England, Liverpool have won two league titles and we have won six, so I've never have experienced Arsenal winning the league," said captain Bernardo Silva. "But the truth is that at the moment they're in a better position than us. I've recently said that both teams would still drop points, but unfortunately we started the year in a negative form as we could've gained an emotional advantage and we didn't.

"And then they could've distanced themselves from us even further but they didn't, so they gave us a bit of hope. There's still a lot of games to be played and every season is different. Without a doubt we still have hope and ambition to fight for this Premier League."