Man City transfer news: Pep Guardiola REVEALS plans after Benjamin Mendy injury

The France full-back is out for up to 12 weeks following knee cartilage surgery in Barcelona last week, but Guardiola maintained his squad is deep enough to cope – and added such deep resources could prove a big advantage over his title rivals as the season rumbles on.

"It is much better [not to have to sign players],” said Guardiola ahead of today’s trip to West Ham. “When we created the squad at the beginning of the season it was not to go to the January [window] except we have problems.

"I have a deep squad and I trust a lot in all the players. When there are some injuries another one is going to play, if not you have a few players in the academy that maybe are going to help us in a few moments or few minutes.

"But we are not going to go to January in the market – no way.”

City will be without Bernardo Silva after the attacking midfielder picked up a knock on international duty with Portugal, but he hopes to be fit to play some part against Lyon on Tuesday.

In the meantime, Guardiola believes his side must be on top of their game against West Ham if they are to reconnect with the red-hot form – scoring 15 goals in three matches – they hit before the international break.

"When the contenders are as good as they are here, things can happen, and some game we are going to lose,” he said. "With the amount of games [coming up], now comes the toughest period of the season.

"The players are not machines, even though they are good, and one game they are going to lose.

Man City transfer news: Pep Guardiola is expecting a quiet window

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"But I am proud because the best we have seen from Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea is this season, and still we are there.”

Guardiola takes on the man he replaced at the Etihad, and Manuel Pellegrini says he is surprised by City’s fast start to the season but will fight fire with fire today.

"I am a little bit surprised [they are unbeaten] – it is not so normal that this happens in the Premier League,” he said.

"There are different ways to try to play against them. The first thing is you must know you must not make mistakes. If you make a mistake, they have players who will take advantage. If you give those players time and space, you will concede a lot.

Man City transfer news: Pep Guardiola's men face West ham on Saturday

"They also have had difficult games this season. Lyon played well against them, Wolves played a good game against them, Liverpool and Tottenham played good games against them.

"There are different ways to do it. I don’t think all those teams played in the same way.

"We are trying to continue thinking and playing as a big team. Of course, we consider who we are playing. But we are not going to play the game just to have a draw and not to concede too many goals. We are going to try to use the game as a good test. This is a big club.”

Pellegrini is under orders to take West Ham to the next level after replacing David Moyes at the London Stadium and being backed by a £100m summer transfer spend.

And he intends to use today’s game as a litmus test for how far his side have come, and whether they can now consider themselves one of the big boys.

"We will try to continue improving,” he said. “To invest money is not the only way you must continue to grow. A lot of teams have invested money. We are trying to do a lot of work to improve the club.

"City and other clubs are in a very good moment with very good players. Every team needs to reduce the distance with them.

"They have very good players, I know how that club works, it is one of the clubs that works best in the world. Guardiola is doing a very good job. It will be special game.

"As a manager you must work in different places. For me the most important thing is that in every club I left people have a good relationship with me. So I will always love that club because I had three very important years of my life there.”