Pep Guardiola was not a happy man as he watched his Manchester City side gift-wrap a win for Tottenham Hotspur at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
After starting well, City were undone on the counter and overplayed at the back. A familiar story in recent times.
Here is the latest Pep Guardiola reaction as Spurs, and Thomas Frank, once again got the better of him.
Pep Guardiola reaction
Overall thoughts on the game: “I had a feeling it was a little bit better than the result,” Guardiola told TNT Sports in the UK. “We start well. We concede a goal that could happen. The simple things, we miss the simple things with the ball. We lost with the quality we have, individually the simple things with the ball we miss it. That is why in transitions and of course they score the second at the end of the first half it was difficult. We need one goal and we had chances and the penalty is not given on Oscar [Bobb] and after the chance for Erling [Haaland] and Rayan [Cherki]. We had chances but we didn’t react well with the marking and the pressing. We knew it. Because Thomas [Frank] does it and it happens. We have to attract and play in different way to the way we play. The final third is really good. We control the transitions. The result is not good. It is a long, long way and we will learn from that.”
On lack of control after Spurs took the lead: “It happens sometimes against Spurs. They punish us always in that position in one action. But even with that, before the goal and after the goal, we slept and many times the simple things, passes we didn’t break. We didn’t make our build up because they were so narrow. We put the ball more outside and from there try to make the action. Many teams play high pressing and we have to read for that.”
On transfers: “We will see. We have one week with the club. We talk with the players, agents. We will see.”
On starting James Trafford in goal with Ederson’s future uncertain: “He made a good first game and I decided to continue,” Guardiola told reporters. “When I take decisions in the first part of the season – for all the players you play one or two everyone thinks ‘OK, this is the starting lineup.’ It was just today I decided that.”
On if his team made it hard for themselves: “When we talk about the second goal, obviously. We talk about that against high-pressing you have to attack differently in our build up. After we dropped we were quite good. I know the physicality they have. We were close in the transition. But we lose the simple things, a lot of ball we lost,” Guardiola told the BBC.
On if his team are gelling and it being early days: “We have done many good things in this period but we have to shape and the finish of the transfer market. We will see how many players we have and after that we will see.”
