THERE WERE STRONG WORDS FROM THE PLAYERS.. WE KNOW THAT WE NEED TO DO MORE
MANCHESTER CITY players spoke some home truths during their dressing-room inquest on Wednesday.
Pep Guardiola’s Premier League champions now have an uphill task after making a disastrous start to their European campaign by losing at home to Lyon.
City midfielder Fernandinho could not explain the reasons for the defeat, which made it four straight Champions League losses.
All is not well with City’s European campaign as they face a difficult trip to Hoffenheim next with Guardiola unhappy at recent performances.
The manager’s No.2 Mikel Arteta was in charge while the Catalan served a touchline ban and Fernandinho revealed the players were angry with themselves during a heated half-time team talk as they trailed 2-0.
Fernandinho said: “There were strong words, not just him [Arteta], but from the players as well. That is the best way to build a very good team.
“It is hard to explain the performance. We didn’t start well. We start waiting to see what happens. When we wake up, it was so late, we concede two goals and in that competition, we cannot win like this. We pay for that. We hope next time it won’t happen.
“Of course we are a good team, we won the Premier League last year, but to compete in Europe against nice teams – good players, quality players – you have to do something extra
and it is a good point because we discussed it at half-time and before the game as well.
“Of course we want to improve, it doesn’t matter how and we are going to work through the week to the following game.
“My point of view is that it’s a tough group. I never thought it was going to be easy and Lyon showed that.
“We had a first half to forget with some mistakes, including by myself. In the second half, we tried to take over, to recover the result, but it was too late.”
His team-mate John Stones said: “We created chances, gave everything in the second half, but two goals in the first cost us the game and that’s the harsh reality of the Champions League.”
City ran away with the league title last season, but it has been a familiar problem in Europe as they struggle to live up to their reputation as England’s best team.
They crashed out to Liverpool in last season’s quarter-finals and have reached the semi-final, but Guardiola knows he is expected to deliver the European Cup. That is his target and their sorry start to the campaign will not change the mood around the Etihad, which was 15,000 below capacity as the fans stayed away again on a European night.
UEFA are set to open an investigation after Lyon threatened a life ban on a fan caught making a Nazi salute during Wednesday’s game.
The incident has been shared on social media and the French club alerted UEFA, while they are also trying to identify the culprit.