• Champions will not have full squad for Community Shield • ‘We’ll kill our players sooner or later’ says manager

Pep Guardiola claims football’s “crazy schedule” could “kill our players” and does not want Manchester City’s resting international squad members to return to training too soon.

City are without a number of players on their pre-season tour of Asia because of summer commitments in international tournaments. Sergio Agüero, Nicolás Otamendi, Fernandinho, Ederson and Gabriel Jesus have all been at the Copa América while Riyad Mahrez was at the Africa Cup of Nations, which concluded on Friday.

City face Liverpool in the Community Shield on 4 August. Guardiola said: “Some of them will come on July 29 or 30, others come back August 3 or 4. They decide whether to come back after three or four weeks off.

“I don’t want them to come back if they are not fit, or if they are tired and have still not recovered from a tough season. We cannot forget we are starting the season and Mahrez hasn’t finished the previous one. It’s a crazy schedule and we’ll kill our players sooner or later, we cannot sustain it for a long time.

“ They have to rest, but if the people want to come back a little bit earlier, they are more than welcome.”

Guardiola, in Hong Kong for the latest leg of the tour, also earlier hit back at claims that City were arrogant and disrespectful during their pre-season visit to China.

An editorial published by China’s state-run news agency Xinhua criticised the conduct of the English champions during the Premier League Asia Trophy in Nanjing and Shanghai.

Manchester City accused of being ‘disrespectful’ by Chinese state media Read more

The piece was headlined “Chinese fans’ love for Man City goes unreciprocated on home soil” and accused the club of visiting China only to “win wallets, not hearts and minds”.

“I should say I don’t agree and also that it’s false,” Guardiola said. “To make a statement like this they have to know exactly what happened here in our club.

“We had an incredible time in Shanghai. We were committed to the cooperation you have to do here in China. The people from the hotel, all the people, were asking us to do things and we were ready to do that.

“To come to Asia and experience the culture, the restaurants – it’s amazing to get to know other people. That’s why I can’t understand what people are saying. Maybe one journalist is a bit upset, I don’t know why – but it’s far away from the reality.”

“We came here and 23 hours later travelled two hours by train to play in Nanjing then back to Shanghai. Now we are here and then to Tokyo. And always with the biggest smile.”

City travelled to Hong Kong to play Kitchee in a friendly on Wednesday before facing their sister club Yokohama F Marinos in Japan on Saturday.

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Raheem Sterling also said the China experience was positive. Speaking alongside Guardiola the forward said: “Every time we got back from training to the hotel we embraced the fans, we signed signatures, we said our goodbyes. I thought there was a really good connection.”

City have arrived in Hong Kong during a period of turmoil after a pro-democracy demonstration at the weekend turned violent. Guardiola said: “As a human being you don’t like to watch it but always as a society you have to accept the protest and I am pretty sure the government will be in agreement about no violence, and they are going to solve the problem … We have no concerns at all. We feel safe.”