‘Nervous’ City in title slip-up
GUARDIOLA BLAMES NERVES AS WOLVES DENT TITLE BID
PEP Guardiola thinks City lost their confidence after making first-half mistakes against Wolves.
The Premier League champions started brightly but were exposed on the counter-attack as Nuno Espirito Santo’s side pounced on errors.
City’s manager did not go into details over why the team became nervous and maintains they have the mentality and spirit that has seen them win the past two Premier League titles – but did reveal they struggled to recover in the 90 minutes.
“It was a bad day, sometimes it happens,” he said. “We started quite well and after we conceded two situations in our build-up where it’s impossible to defend, we got a little bit nervous.
“We controlled them better in the second half but at the end with us attacking and people up front, we lost balls in positions where it is so difficult and they were clinical. Before that we hit the post, but the way we played was not good. It was not a good day, we didn’t play good.”
Asked specifically why the players were nervous, he answered: “It sometimes happens.
“We spoke about this: ‘Come on guys, a lot of games to play, we did it and we’re going to do it again’. We lost to a good team that were really well-organised, good physicality, strong in the air and so fast on the counter-attack.”
KYLE Walker was taken off for medical rather than tactical reasons at the end of City’s first half against Wolves.
Pep Guardiola made the decision to start Joao Cancelo and Walker, leaving two left-backs on the bench, for the Premier League encounter on Sunday but made a change at the break that saw Cancelo move to the right and Aleks Zinchenko come on.
The Portugal international had linked up well with Raheem Sterling but neither he nor Walker had been immune from the defensive problems that the Blues found themselves in during a tough opening 45 minutes.
It may not have surprised too many to see the manager make a change at the break, but Guardiola explained after the game that it was enforced and that Walker had fought to play after struggling with a stomach infection.
“Kyle could not continue in the second half,” he said. “The first half all the dangerous situations we created were from Joao. On the left side he was the most brilliant player on the team.
“Kyle had an infection in his stomach. He didn’t train so well, he lost a lot of weight and he made an incredible effort to play because we needed fast players with the problems we had backwards because we knew we needed to make the build up with three in the back and not four. But at half-time he said he didn’t feel good so we make the change.”
Benjamin Mendy missed the game with a hamstring injury but is expected back after the international break.
Kyle could not continue in the second half – at half-time he said he didn’t feel so good Pep Guardiola