Pep Guardiola defended his goalkeeper Ederson for being lobbed from some 40 yards as Manchester City fell to their ninth Premier League defeat of the season away to Southampton.
Che Adams’s first Southampton goal – scored after Oleksandr Zinchenko lost possession cheaply in midfield – consigned City to their third successive away defeat.
Zinchenko was robbed of possession by Stuart Armstrong, allowing Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side to immediately counter. Adams spotted Ederson off his goal-line and lifted a first-time shot over the Brazilian’s head.
But Guardiola refused to criticise his goalkeeper’s positioning, insisting that Ederson has to take up advanced positions in order to help build City’s attacks.
“We use our keeper for our build-up, to play, to play better,” the City manager said, instead blaming the defeat on the number of chances his players missed.
“Ederson gives us a lot and of course the mistake was the mistake but we didn’t lose for that reason. It happened many times this season, the amount of chances that we have we have to try to score goals.”
City’s 26 shots on goal was the most City have attempted during the Guardiola era while still failing to score, but failing to convert chances has been a recurring feature of their season.
“It was a little bit of a resume of this season,” Guardiola said. ”One mistake and they punished us. After, we created a lot. 10 players behind the ball and we conceded few chances. We played a really good performance but it was not enough.”
Hasenhuttl, meanwhile, admitted that Southampton had set out to force City to make errors and take advantage’s of Ederson’s adventurous positioning.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
