Pep Guardiola has bemoaned his side’s hectic scheduling ahead of facing Real Madrid next Wednesday.

Real Madrid play their La Liga clash on Saturday, and will have an extra day’s rest, compared to Man City who play a crucial Premier League game with Everton on Sunday.

In his pre-match press conference on Friday, an exasperated Guardiola said: “I don’t want to be distracted by Real because we have time – not much time because we play Sunday, thank you so much – but the Goodison Park game is a priority.

“I don’t understand it but I don’t want a fight on that any more. I don’t understand but we have to adapt it.

“We don’t fight on the schedule from the Premier League, UEFA and so on. It’s not frustrating – how many times can I comment on that? I’m pretty sure that La Liga and the Premier League want to help teams, I don’t think they want to make us uncomfortable.

“It is the schedule with this amount of games that is the problem. We couldn’t play on Saturday because of Eurovision in Liverpool and we don’t have enough police to do two events at the same time.

“We would prefer to have more time to prepare but it is what it is. It’s not like in France or Germany where they play on Friday [when teams are in Europe the following midweek].

“Here, the Premier League is more important and the schedule is the schedule. We cannot swap. I felt it since day one and it’s not going to change.”