Pep says City don’t plan fouls
PEP GUARDIOLA has rubbished claims his side are masters of football’s Dark Arts.
Former Manchester United star Gary Neville insisted City have perfected the tactical foul to stop teams counterattacking them.
Guardiola said: “I don’t agree with that. We are a team that try to play and, of course, when there is a counter-attack sometimes the contact, the action is a foul but as a team we don’t think about that.
“I’m not disclosing a secret when I say that when the opponent has the ball we’re going to push them, press them to regain the ball.
“But people have to know, and Gary Neville knows perfectly because he was a former player, the opponents play, too.
“Sometimes they dribble, you arrive late and you’re down and make a foul. So it happens – I’m not saying we don’t make fouls. But the intention to do it (deliberately) … no.
“Normally when for every 10 minutes you have the ball for seven of them there is less option to make fouls.
“I can assure you never in my life, in one meeting or one idea, did I say to my players, ‘You have to do that to make problems to the opponents, to not let them be who they are’.” “EVERY time the other team wins the ball back and goes on the counter-attack they foul them. There’s a lot of cynicism about that team – which I like. It’s not just two or three fouls. It is four, five, six every single game.
“Fernandinho, in particular, must make 400 fouls a match but he does it in a nice way. He just trips up people and gets away with it because he picks them up and he’s nice, he smiles and the referees have no problem.
“It isn’t just pure, wonderful football. There is a lot of the dark arts in there as well.”