Just Saint City’s day!
...BUT BLUES SUFFER THIRD STRAIGHT AWAY DEFEAT
PEP Guardiola admits he is baffled as to how City lost to Southampton despite battering the south coast side.
The Blues slumped to a ninth league defeat of the season as they were beaten 1-0 – and it was a familiar story as they were made to pay for a defensive error and were unable to convert a hatful of chances.
Alex McCarthy was in fine form in the Saints goal, stopping Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling and David Silva among other saves.
Even the introduction of Kevin de Bruyne and Phil Foden couldn’t help the Blues find a way past the home goalkeeper.
“We played more than good, but it is not enough to win the game,” said Guardiola. “We cannot say we are a team who doesn’t score goals this season, we are leading in goals.
“We create a lot of chances, we concede less than other teams in the Premier League, but we lost a lot of games, a lot of games - and that’s why it is difficult even for me to find a reason.
“We are the same guys that we are and we did it in previous seasons.
“This season the way we are playing is quite similar but it is not enough to win the games.”
Midfielder Bernardo Silva insists City played well, despite failing to convert their pressure into goals and falling to their third consecutive away defeat in the league.
He said: “I honestly think we played well. We created plenty of chances but we couldn’t score. Then little mistakes cost us the game.
“Overall I think 88 minutes of the 90 were spent on the Southampton half of the pitch. Congratulations to them. We didn’t play a bad game, we started well, the second half especially we put a lot of pressure but we couldn’t score, we couldn’t finish our chances.”
Pointing to where City need to do better in games like this, Bernardo said individual mistakes were the
cause of the defeat. He added: “I think we need to improve the mistakes we made, the little mistakes that cost us a goal.
“We are used to teams playing against us very deep. They started the game trying to press us high and sometimes it’s difficult because they are an intense team, physical team.”
Meanwhile, Southampton boss Ralph Hassenhutl revealed how his team worked on exposing City goalkeeper Ederson.
Che Adams won the game as he fired a shot over the stranded Brazil stopper, who had strayed outside his area.
And Hassenhutl said that trying to take advantage of Ederson’s role as a keeper who joins in the outfield play and often takes a high line to close space behind his back four, was part of the Southampton plan.
Said the Saints boss: “If you have a goalkeeper like him that is also playing like a libero to build up the game, it is normal he is not always in a perfect position when you win the ball.
“Our goal was to force them into mistakes and if we made one then be clinical and quick.
“It was fantastic that Che in that moment saw that the goalkeeper was far in front of his goal and made a perfect first touch.”