PEP: IT’S ALL MY FAULT
‘My ideas at times were not good... but I want England to change me’
IT WAS not quite a mea culpa but it was close. Of course, on the back of a 5-0 win, it is always easier to reflect on your mistakes.
But at the London Stadium on Friday night, Pep Guardiola was as expansive and engaging as he was surly and uncommunicative after the 2-1 win over Burnley on Monday. Then, an arrogance underscored his refusal to engage. His frustration with a lack of protection afforded Claudio Bravo and the legitimate dismissal of Fernandinho seemed to suggest the major problems of City’s season were all with English football rather than his decision making.
After the sublime FA Cup thirdround win against West Ham, he was back to being the smart, urbane coach of the 21st century. For this performance was up there with the displays at Manchester United and at home to Barcelona.
When they are good, Guardiola’s teams are very good, as those opening 10 wins of the season demonstrated. But the vulnerability, all too evident at Barcelona away, Chelsea at home and Leicester away, needs to be eradicated. And for the first time, Guardiola conceded that his own tinkering and over thinking the problem has been to blame.
‘In the first part of the season some really good games and good performances,’ he said. ‘But the moment we felt mistakes, especially in defence — at White Hart Lane, at Celtic — we lost our confidence to play a little bit. And of course at times my ideas were not good, because I’m still in the process to know the players; what is the best position, the best way to play, to adapt to them.
‘Sometimes I have an idea; three at the back, or play a player like this. And sometimes it didn’t work and when that happens it is always the manager. I never complain to the players because, when I see them training, how they suffer and what they did in the last game against Burnley, after 65, 70 minutes with 10 against 11, two days after the game at Anfield, they want to do it.
‘You have to look at yourself and see what you have to do to help them find each other and play to each other more fluently, not all the time with aggression. And that’s my job. I have to help them. And I tell them. And most of the times we were not good, it was my responsibility.’
In explaining his mistakes, Guardiola is publicly showing a fuller appreciation of the unique characteristics of English football. His line after the 4-2 defeat against Leicester — ‘I’m not a coach for the tackles’ — might have made sense in different circumstances. It would have been beautifully timed after his exquisite Barca team had swept aside Manchester United in the 2011 Champions League final. But in the aftermath of a mauling at Leicester, it sounded facile.
At times, it has felt like everyone should adapt to him but it did not feel that way in conversation with Guardiola on Friday night. It felt like he was going out of his way to soothe local sensibilities.
‘I’m not going to change England and I don’t want to do that,’ he said. ‘Of course it’s going to change me. That’s why I came here — to be changed. That is nice. Every country has its own personality, its own way to play. And that is marvellous. For example, in Holland the football in Amsterdam is completely different to Rotterdam. Because Rotterdam is an industrial city and people live and play a different way. That’s why football is amazing.’ And he added: ‘Of course, I come here and I said a thousand, million times that I try to adapt to English football in the way I believe you can. But in the end it’s 11 against 11 and the pitches here are smaller, or it looks like it, more than the other places. ‘And of course the intensity, the aggression and the permission to play on, with less fouls, makes it a bit more difficult. So I understand that. I never complained. It’s just we can do better to improve.’ It was a far cry from last week’s suggestion that he was nearing the end of his coaching career at City, from which he had already backtracked. In essence, he will not change his style but what was clear on Friday was that it is evolving to suit England.
‘Control of the game, through passes,’ he said. ‘We have to try. It’s not always possible because the opponents are playing too and they are so aggressive and it’s not easy to do that. But that’s what I think we have to try to do, through the passes; through the multi, multi, multi passes, the situation comes along. And when that happens, you concede few goals.’ But if his team is drawn into a dogfight, they will invariably lose. ‘When the ball is up and down, any team in the Premier League is better than us — much, much bet-
ter,’ he said. After we lost [against Tottenham] there have been sporadic times [where we were good], like Barcelona the second half — but that was more like a Brazilian-style counter attack; our good performance was more taking the ball and running with it.’
Seasoned observers of Guardiola always considered him tetchy and difficult the second and third seasons into a job. So the post-Burnley attitude was unsurprising, what was surprising was that it had taken just six months in England to push Guardiola to that point.
He is simply not used to losing as many games and scrabbling around for the top four. He only lost 21 games in total in four seasons at Barcelona. He also lost 21, including penalty shootout defeats, in three seasons at Bayern, but that included one run of three defeats in four Bundesliga games after they had won the title in 2014-15.
In fact, the tail end of that season, when they lost five in six games, represents the previous nadir of his career. This season he has already lost six games, so five more would represent his worst season yet.
But the idea of life in England seemed to sit a little more comfortably with him after Friday’s win than it had earlier in the week. ‘If I did the same thing all my career, 15 or 20 years as a coach, it’s boring,’ he said. ‘Still, I would be in Barcelona, my home and with these players. I would be there.’
The weather, it was pointed out, would be better there. ‘A little bit, yeah,’ he smiled. And with that he headed out into a freezing night of persistent east London rain.