Irate Guardiola goes out with a grumble
MANCHESTER, England — Perched high in the stands, Pep Guardiola buried his head and covered his eyes.
At times, the Manchester City manager couldn’t bear to watch as his Champions League hopes were extinguished.
On a night when his players needed him most on the touchline, Guardiola was largely helpless to intervene.
The elevated view was not out of choice, but for allowing his emotions to boil over as the players departed for the halftime break.
The target of Guardiola’s wrath was Spanish referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz, who had incorrectly ruled out Leory Sane’s goal minutes earlier for offside after failing to spot that the ball had come off Liverpool’s James Milner.
“I didn’t insult the referee,” Guardiola said. “I just said, ‘It’s a goal. It came off Milner.’”
The remonstrations achieved nothing apart from Liverpool Jurgen Klopp having no company on the sideline for the second half of this quarterfinal second leg that City lost 2-1 to go out 5-2 on aggregate.
Had Sane’s goal not been disallowed, City would have jumped 2-0 in front on the night.
Trailing 3-0 from the first leg at Anfield last week, a comeback would have seemed not just possible but highly conceivable from the team Klopp hails as “the best in the world”.
“We mature constantly,” Klopp said after the game in which Liverpool became the first team to beat a Guardiolamanaged side three times in one season.
“The boys are getting more and more used to this. If you could say something about us in the past, on an average day we lose cheap goals. We’ve worked at that,” said the German.
Guardiola played an attacking lineup, with just three defenders against Liverpool’s front trio, and the gamble looked as if it might pay off in the first half.
“They took all the risks they could take, we needed a bit of luck and a disciplined defending formation. I was not overly happy at halftime to be honest,” said Klopp.
“They could have scored two or three goals in the first half but it was 100 percent clear that if we won the ball we’d have an opportunity.
“It’s not about perfection it’s about the result, the character, the mentality, really fighting for the result. We defended well, it’s not our best game but we deserved it at the end.”
Gabriel Jesus’ second-minute strike had given City hope that it could overturn the Reds’ three-goal first-leg advantage.
However, with Sane’s goal scrubbed, a single goal was a meager return for City’s relentless and energetic attacks in the first 45, and Liverpool emerged after the break with renewed vigor.
Mohamed Salah’s 56th-minute goal made it 4-1 on aggregate and left City needing four goals to advance. That became five once Roberto Firmino netted in the 77th minute.
“We created chances, but of course it’s not easy because they had 10 players behind,” said Guardiola, who slumped to a third straight loss for the first time in his Manchester career.
“We were beaten by an exceptional team,” he added.
For the third time this season. Liverpool also inflicted City’s first loss of the Premier League season. The second came on Saturday at home to Manchester United — a derby setback that denied City the chance to seal the title.
Such a blip was to be expected, Guardiola argued, when City had set such high standards until now.
“I have to analyze what we’ve done in 10 months and I think it’s quite good,” Guardiola said.
“I saw the body language of my players. You won’t find a team who can keep the same momentum, the same rhythm, the same pace with this amount of games. It’s almost impossible.”
The Premier League trophy will still surely be won — within weeks, given City’s 13-point lead — to go with the League Cup that was won in February.
But is two trophies an adequate return for a manager who has been able to spend more than $600 million in his four transfer windows at the helm?
And what does it say when the world’s costliest defense concedes eight goals in three of the most significant games of the season in the space of seven days?
Guardiola was hired to bring the European Cup to City for the first time. Twice a Champions League winner with Barcelona, he isn’t sure he can reach the final next season.
“Last season it was the round of 16, this season it’s the quarterfinals,” Guardiola said. “Hopefully next season we can go to the semifinals.”