Manchester, Jan 10 (IANS): Pep Guardiola is looking forward to facing his ‘hometown’ Club Salford City in the FA Cup and says City will show them a lot of respect to try and avoid a giant-killing. City will play the Ammies for the first time in our history when they come to the Etihad Stadium on Saturday. But Guardiola has faced Salford boss Karl Robinson before when he was in charge of Oxford and his side gave City two tough ties in the Carabao Cup in 2018 and the following year.

The City boss, who has lived in Salford since taking over at the Etihad in 2016, says Robinson’s team plays with high intensity and that the Blues need to be ready for the challenge. "I’ve lived in Salford for the last eight years so I will be playing against my neigbourhood, my home town. I have a lot of respect for the manager [Karl Robinson], we played years ago at Oxford and when he was assistant to Sam Allardyce at Leeds.

"The last six games, six clean sheets and six victories, so I have huge respect for them and what they do, the intensity and we will take it seriously, like we always have done. Hopefully, we can do a good game and make it three wins in a row – it’s a long time since it happened,” said Pep in the press conference.

Former Manchester United players Nicky Butt, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, and Ryan Giggs are among the investors in Salford while the latter has regularly joined Robinson in the dugout as the Club’s sporting director.

Guardiola says football people often make good decisions around the sport and currently in a League Two promotion spot, Salford could move higher up the pyramid. “Well they won a lot of titles, that generation of players, they got a lot of money so they can buy teams and it’s good.

“I saw Gary Neville, I don’t know all the other players involved but they are smart people I’m sure of that, and when people from football run clubs they take smart decisions. They decided it’s fine," he added.