The days of manager's sharing a drink after a game are a thing of the past in English football, but if Karl Robinson and Pep Guardiola get time for a chat at the Etihad on Saturday, they might find they have plenty in common.

It won't be the first time Robinson and Guardiola have pitted their wits against each other, having been in opposing dugouts twice when Guardiola took City teams to Oxford United when Robinson was in charge there. But it might be the first time they can both reflect on the stresses this job entails.

They have 1,696 career games in the dugout between them, despite Guardiola being only 53 and Robinson 44. But they have been through the ringer as well.

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Robinson spoke openly and eloquently about the battle to switch-off from the grind of management during the BBC's Moment of Truth podcast, which followed Robinson and Paul Warne during the final 90 days of the 2022 League One season while they were in charge of Oxford and Rotherham.

Recently, Guardiola has spoken about the stress he has been under during a difficult run at Manchester City. The Catalan left scratch marks on his own head after his team collapsed from 3-0 up against Feyenoord and has since explained how he has difficulty sleeping and eating at times.

Robinson, now in charge of Salford City and planning for the Ammies trip to the Etihad in the FA Cup third round this weekend, jokes he doesn't struggle with the eating part, but completely understands why Guardiola struggles in the way he does.

"I totally get that," he said. "I think everyone's got a perception of us. I think they think we're so robotic that we're we're emotionless to criticism, to results, I think people think that when we get beat we go home and it's something that we don't ever take home with us.

"It can ruin your life. It really can. I think the LMA (League Managers' Association) do a wonderful job to try and support us the best they possibly can, but the only person who can ever do that is yourself.

"So when you see the the best of the best, which is what he certainly is, not sleeping through results and looking for different ways of playing. I've had many, many of them [sleepless nights].

"Trust me, I was quite open in the podcast about that, that it's something I struggle with, and then when I first started, I tried to be something that I completely wasn't.

"I tried to be somebody else, and I struggled massively with different mental health situations and it wasn't until you actually look yourself in the mirror and really question yourself and who you want to be, there's your transparency with you as a person, then that vulnerability that you can show with your players is also a strength.

"I think I've had many, many nights of just looking at the ceiling. I've counted many sheep trying to go to sleep, trust me. To see the best come out and say that, I think it does make all of us feel a little bit better about ourselves."

Robinson also came up against Guardiola when he joined Leeds United as Sam Allardyce's assistant, and he believes Guardiola's openness about the difficulties he has been going through is a sign of the man.

"I think he's just a tremendous human being. I’m lucky enough to go up against him two or three times and even when we were at Leeds last year, you sort of see the quality of the person," he said.

"It's nice to know that it also happens at the top, top level. It's not just us that get the sleepless nights."

Robinson has been sleeping a little easier this season, with a run of six successive League Two wins pushing Salford into the automatic promotion places. He has been in charge at the Peninsula Stadium for just over a year and recalls getting a call from the owners on New Year's Day last year, while in Manchester with his wife, and being immediately impressed by their honesty and transparency.

After a couple of meetings Robinson accepted the job, but ahead of the trip to the Etihad he revealed for the first time that he worked without a contract for the first seven games he was in charge.

"I was just doing the job, I mean we were going so long that it was like, well, they trusted me, I trusted them," he said. "That's the type of relationship that we started with. Everything was quite organic and I've loved it."