Pep Guardiola moans about "horrible" decision despite Man City's win at Arsenal
Pep Guardiola lamented his "horrible" new tactics despite Manchester City claiming a crucial win over Arsenal on Wednesdya night.
Goals from Kevin de Bruyne, Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland handed City a crucial three points in the Premier League title race. City now return to the top of the table, leapfrogging the Gunners, who have a game in hand on their title rivals.
Guardiola had tried something unusual in his set-up for the game, with Bernardo Silva frequently dropping into left-back from his normal midfield spot. While that ploy appeared to work to keep Bukayo Saka quiet, City also gave up possession as a result.
In fact, the visitors had just 36 per cent of the possession during the titanic clash, their lowest amount of the ball under Guardiola's management. And the City boss admitted he was annoyed with himself for how he decided to set up his team.
"My tactics because I decided something new and it was horrible," he told Amazon Prime when asked what frustrated him most with City's performance.
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"Second half was more like we are. We let them play the build up, our shape, we let them play. When you let them play with Jorginho, Xhaka, Alex [Zinchenko], they found the players in behind, Odegaard, the runners outside up top.
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Guardiola hailed Bernardo Silva for his performance against Arsenal"In the second half we adjusted and it was good, go in more aggressive to Odegaard and we controlled more of the ball, we played more, we played more, and Erling helped us a lot because we had to use more long balls and used his power to keep the ball.
"In the first half they had one more man in the middle, it was hard to control it and that’s why we suffered, but in the second half we were there."
Despite those "horrible" tactics, City were still able to claim a crucial win, one which shoots them back to the top of the Premier League table. And Guardiola picked out the performances of Silva and De Bruyne as being critical for his team.
"Normally we put Bernardo in the middle, but man-to-man they have an extra man in there so that’s why it’s a little bit useless. Bernardo is so important for us, so intelligent, so clever to understand what is going on," the City boss said.
"He is adapting to correct everything and the started at left back and finished right winger, so. I’m not going to discuss how important Kevin is for us but sometimes with the shape of Tottenham, so deep, 5-4-1, playing in the pockets he’d struggle a little bit.
"I decided to put two strikers for a bit more presence in the box. That’s about tactics, it’s not about form or I don’t like Kevin de Bruyne.
"It’s just sometimes I saw the opponent, I saw do I want more presence in the box to score more goals? That’s the reason why. And also there is a lot of games, everyone has to play."
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