Tuchel’s men are in driving seat for final say
THE good news for Pep Guardiola is that he still leads 4-2 in his head-to-head with Thomas Tuchel.
The bad news for Guardiola, as the pair head towards their Champions League final showdown, is Tuchel’s wins have come in their past two meetings, following on from last month’s FA Cup semi-final.
Guardiola may have made significant changes to his line-ups in those two games, but there is no question Tuchel’s Chelsea have the measure of Manchester City ahead of the European showpiece on May 29.
The suggestion from the City camp was Guardiola
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made so many changes – only Ederson and Ruben Dias survived from the side that beat Paris SaintGermain – because he did not want his players to win and potentially go into the final against Chelsea with any feeling of complacency.
With City still needing a win to clinch the title, that smacked of an excuse, particularly as Tuchel also left out a handful of players who will be certain starters for the final.
For City, Kevin De Bruyne, Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, John Stones, Kyle
Walker and Fernandinho, did not feature here. For Chelsea, Mason Mount, Kai Havertz, Ben Chilwell, Mateo Kovacic and Thiago Silva were all left out.
Against that backdrop, City and their manager missed a trick, with Guardiola suffering back-toback home league defeats for the first time as a manager, following the loss to Leeds last month.
“The first game [against Chelsea] was completely different,” said the City boss. “We came back from Dortmund and we were not quite good, that’s all. It can happen. I’m pretty sure for the final of the Champions
League we’ll be ready to compete and play the best game we possibly can.
“Now the FA Cup and Carabao Cup are over, we have to focus on winning the Premier League.”
Sergio Aguero’s selfindulgent Panenka penalty miss, for which he apologised afterwards, proved the turning point.
Had Aguero scored, Tuchel admitted it would have been difficult for his side to come back from 2-0 down after Raheem Sterling had given City the lead.
As it was, they rallied in the second half and scored through Hakim Ziyech and Marcos Alonso.
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