Guardiola hits back at dark arts accusation
Pep Guardiola has vehemently defended his Manchester City team against accusations that they are “masters of the dark arts”.
That claim was made last week by both Gary Neville and Martin Keown, who suggested that apart from their wonderful football, City were not afraid to commit deliberate fouls and break up the game when necessary.
While Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho chose to highlight that point ahead of the derby last season.
It came to a head in the 1-0 win over Tottenham at Wembley last Monday night, where Fernandinho collected just his second yellow card of the season in 10 matches, despite conceding 16 free-kicks.
Guardiola is adamant that any fouls given away are coincidental and result from his side’s approach to win the ball back as quickly as possible.
From his days at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, the Catalan coach insists that he has never tried to stop the opposition in such a blatant manner.
“I completely disagree with this idea,” he says.
“We are a team that tries to play. “When there is a counter-attack, sometimes there is contact and the action is a foul. But we don’t think about that.
“Never have my teams been focused on doing something wrong against the opponents. Sometimes situations happen, but we are a team that always tries to attack, defend well and to play our game.
“I understand the game in a different approach – to be aggressive without the ball, stay high and defend the space behind our backs and try to play the best football possible to win the games.
“We are not a team that looks for these kinds of never situations.
“It never happened in Barcelona, it never happened at Bayern Munich, it can never happen at City and will never happen in the future in my career. Never.
“I am not disclosing a secret when I say that when the opponent has the ball we are going to push and press them to regain the ball to attack more.
“People have to know the opponents play, too. Sometimes they dribble, you arrive late and make a foul.
“I am not saying we don’t concede fouls. But the intention to do something deliberately – no.
“Sometimes we regain the ball, sometimes we make fouls. That’s why the referee is there to make decisions, and decide if it’s a foul or a yellow card or something like that
“But when you have the highest ball percentage and you have the ball, you can’t make fouls, it’s impossible.
“I can assure you that never in my life did I say to my players: ‘You have to do that to make problems to the opponents, to not let them be who they are’.”
The 1-0 win over Spurs was the sixth consecutive game in which City kept a clean sheet in the league. They have conceded only three in their 10 games.
Another clean sheet today at home to Southampton would equal Guardiola’s best league run as a manager, achieved during his time in Spain and Germany.
The City boss wants people to understand that he takes as much care in good defensive play as well as the goals at the other end.
He adds: “The clean sheets are important, but how few chances we concede shows our stability.
“The difference in our approach is that we don’t defend deep, we defend so high. We defend with a lot of space in behind.
“We always believe in this and we try to convince that when the ball is far away from our goal, we are safe.
“When the ball is in and around your box, anything can happen. You concede corners, free-kicks, fouls.
“We always believe in defending far away, but that is not just down to the back four or back five. Everybody makes an effort to defend well.
“Of course in the last 10 years, I was always concerned and focused on defending well, maybe more than any other thing.
“You tend to find that the team that scores the most usually concedes the least. It’s all about balance.”