Pep Guardiola appeared to disagree with Ilkay Gundogan’s assessment of Manchester City’s damaging 2-0 defeat by Juventus in the Champions League.
Gundogan gave a painstakingly honest interview after City were beaten 2-0 in Turin, suffering their seventh defeat in 10 matches. The German international had said that his side were trying to “overcomplicate things” which was why they lost possession and conceded two goals on the counterattack. Guardiola, however, appeared surprised when he was told of Gundogan’s comments on TNT Sports.
Gundogan said: “It’s very disappointing. We had chances to score a few goals but at the moment it feels like every attack we concede is just so dangerous. I have a feeling sometimes we are a bit careless with duels, instead of playing simple we overcomplicate things and we missed the right timing to release the ball. Just lose the ball and give them counter attacks. We are built for possession, keep the ball, be strong, if you can’t do anything don’t lose it. At the moment it’s not working out for us.”
The City boss was informed of Gundogan’s comments and responded: “He said we don’t need…sorry? No, no, we have done it today, other days, no, but today we have done it, we have done it really well. We didn’t lose many balls as happened in the past, we tried to arrive in the [best] positions. Italian teams defend so deep they are so compact, they are the master of these situations. Even with that we played like who we are. We missed the result but the performance is there.”
City have effectively squandered the chance to finish in the top eight in the Champions League standings to automatically qualify for the last 16 and they will have to end the league phase strongly to qualify for the play-offs. Guardiola’s side are 22nd, just two places and one point from slipping out of the competition altogether. They face Paris Saint-Germain away in their next European outing in January before hosting Club Brugge in their final game.
Since the start of November, City have conceded more goals across all competitions than any other team from Europe’s big five leagues (21 in nine games).
City are facing their worst run of results in the Guardiola era and next up is the derby at home to Manchester United, who are also struggling. City lost the FA Cup final to United in May but have won their last three league matches against their local rivals 4-1, 6-3 and 3-1.
