My players are not fragile, insists Guardiola
PEP GUARDIOLA came out swinging in defence of his players by rejecting Ilkay Gundogan’s claim that Manchester City are mentally fragile in big matches. Gundogan offered an honest appraisal following Tuesday’s 1-0 Champions League defeat at Tottenham, suggesting City are nervous in such matches and not brave enough. But, ahead of tomorrow’s crunch trip to Crystal Palace, Guardiola rejected the midfielder’s claims and insisted his players are learning to deal with setbacks. Guardiola said: ‘I don’t think I agree with him. He can say whatever he wants. ‘It has happened many times in my career in specific games when they lost a little control. But regarding this specific game, it did not happen.’ The City manager, who hopes Bernardo Silva and Aleks Zinchenko will be fit for Palace, believes they showed more composure in the quarter-final first leg against Tottenham than in the previous Champions League away tie at Schalke. In Germany, City had to rely on individual brilliance to overturn a deficit after conceding two goals during a calamitous sevenminute capitulation before halftime. ‘The game at Spurs was much better than Schalke,’ Guardiola added. ‘The difference was Leroy Sane put the ball in the corner from 50 yards and against Spurs we missed a penalty. ‘Schalke was a far more dangerous situation because we were 10 against 11 and losing 2-1, but we reacted well in both situations. ‘There are games when we concede a goal and we are not there, but in this case we conceded a goal and nothing happened. ‘Especially in the second half it was under control. ‘We did it with a lower tempo and we didn’t want to concede counter attacks. ‘Tottenham were stronger than us because we had two days’ rest, they had six. ‘We decided to play a different type of game. Now we have the second leg with our fans at home and we’ll go for the semi-finals.’