WE NEED A LUKAKU Guardiola admits City will have to sign a top striker

PEP GUARDIOLA has accepted that Manchester City do not possess a ‘weapon’ like Romelu Lukaku — and believes his bosses know they must sign a striker next summer.

City failed to replace Sergio Aguero as Tottenham stood firm over letting Harry Kane leave and Guardiola is likely to continue deploying false nines.

Today they face a Chelsea team boasting new £97.5million front man Lukaku, with the clubs’ difference in goalscoring options potentially the difference in the title race.

‘There are two options that we have right now — complaining or say we have exceptional players,’ said Guardiola. ‘These players have taken this club to another level and I’m still fascinated by the way they train, their commitment. That is enough for me.

‘We don’t have this weapon that other teams have, like Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham or other teams. We don’t have a player to score 25 league goals for himself, so we have to do it as a team. I can’t deny what a player Romelu Lukaku is.’

City lifted last season’s Premier League crown without being able to call on Aguero for large spells, but went into this title defence without a recognised No 9. They are expected to be in the mix for Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland next summer.

Guardiola added: ‘We survived without Sergio in a good way. The club knows that it needs a striker in the next years. Sometimes it is possible, sometimes not because they’re the more expensive ones.’

City face a huge week, with trips to Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool following today’s clash at Stamford Bridge. Aymeric Laporte and John Stones have returned to training but half a dozen of Guardiola’s squad are short of match fitness.

‘We are the champions because we rarely complain about many stupid things,’ he said. ‘In this brutal schedule, we’ll have situations that are uncomfortable to deal with but we have enough in the squad.’

Tuchel can today become the first manager to beat Guardiola four times in a row. The German insisted this game is not about their personal battle — ‘we don’t play a match of tennis or chess’ — but admitted that four successive defeats by the same coach would rankle with him.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Tuchel. ‘I had to suffer from that — he beat me, I think, four times in a row so I had to also deal with it and come back from it. Nobody likes it.’

Tuchel has come a long way since he sought advice from Guardiola in the early days of his coaching career. It was suggested yesterday that the City boss might now regret being so helpful.

‘Nothing he taught me helps me now to build a confident team to compete with him,’ said Tuchel.

‘If you are a coach at Mainz you cannot come up with the idea, “Let’s play like Barcelona”. But if we now play at our very best we are a team that can compete with Pep’s team and this is a good feeling because it means you are in a good place as a coach.’

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