Pep leaves door open to tightening up
PEP Guardiola has admitted for the first time the fatal flaw in his footballing philosophy.
And the City manager accepts it could cost him his chance of ever delivering the Champions League to the Etihad.
Guardiola is hoping to overturn Liverpool’s 3-0 quarter-final first-leg lead when City host Jurgen Klopp’s side tomorrow night.
But Saturday’s stunning derby defeat to United brought back memories of that chastening clash at Anfield, which saw the best team in the country taken apart by 19-minute blitz, led by Mo Salah.
And two goals from Paul Pogba inside three minutes wiped out an utterly dominant first-half display from City.
Chris Smalling’s winner crowned an incredible 16-minute spell from Jose Mourinho’s side that left the home crowd stunned.
For Guardiola, it was all too familiar a feeling.
It is a pattern he has spotted in his teams – and one he’s not sure he can rectify.
In successive seasons at Bayern Munich he saw the German champions capitulate spectacularly in the semi-finals.
In 2014, Bayern were aiming to overturn Real Madrid’s 1-0 first-leg lead back at the Allianz Arena.
But three goals in 18 minutes killed the tie before half-time – Real eventually winning 4-0 at the home of the reigning European champions.
A year later and Guardiola came up against the club he twice won the trophy with – Barcelona.
Holding the Catalan giants to a goalless draw as the clock ticked towards 77 minutes, Bayern were close to an encouraging first-leg result.
Instead they were subjected to a 13-minute blitz – Lionel Messi scoring twice and Luis Suarez getting the other in a 3-0 win.
Back at the Allianz, Bayern put up a good fight – winning 3-2 on the night. But the tie had already been lost.
After back-toback collapses against Liverpool and United, Guardiola admits it is a long-standing concern.
“I thought many times about that,” he said. “I’ve dropped a lot of Champions League games in the space of 10 or 15 minutes. “I think about that many times, yeah. Barcelona, 77 minutes – 0-0, 90 minutes – 3-0. It happened many times. “Maybe it’s my fault. I have to think about it. But I feel that when you dominate and create chances you are closer to winning games and I think this season showed that. “But it’s impossible when the opponents arrive four times and score three goals – there is no system that can sustain that so it’s so complicated.” City’s dazzling first-half against United, with Vincent Kompany and Ilkay Gundogan firing them into a 2-0 lead, was evidence of the threat they pose to Klopp’s side. But Guardiola is also aware that the derby defeat highlighted his side’s own vulnerability. “Football is a results business and the result was not good,” he said. “Jose was right, I was not right, it’s simple like that. But what I would say is I would like to correct that, to improve these kind of situations. “But what happened in the first-
When you have that momentum, you have to close the door. And we didn’t close it Pep Guardiola
half is what has happened all the season.
“The opponent is good. Alexis (Sanchez), (Paul) Pogba, (Jesse) Lingard, (Romelu) Lukaku, these kind of players are good players and we cannot deny that.
“They have ability from nothing to create chances.
“But we saw in the first-half and the last minutes, when you have two one-against-ones and the Gundogan chance, at 3-0, 4-0 the game is over.
“But at 2-0 the game is never over, especially here in this league.
“Football at that level is about the boxes. When Real Madrid and Barcelona are always there it’s because they have players up front who, when they have halfchances, score two goals.”
Now Guardiola fears United will have inflicted a psychological blow on his players ahead of Liverpool.
“It’s difficult for our mood not winning,” he added. “I came here in the first-half to try to do what we’ve done all season, but maybe it’s not enough to win at Champions League level or the Premier League.
“If that’s so I will have to recognise that I’m not good enough or the way we want to play is not able to do that, but I don’t think so because of what we’ve done this season.
“I like to watch my team, the way we play, and the way we played in the first-half.
“But when you play against Liverpool or in Europe, when you have that momentum, you have to close the door.
“And we didn’t close it.”