Sarcasm is not the lowest form of wit in the eyes of Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola.
The Catalan coach was in fine form when addressing the media ahead of City’s Carabao Cup third-round clash with Huddersfield Town. As the focus once again hovered around Guardiola’s uncharacteristically reserved tactics against Arsenal, the outspoken tactician made full use of his acidic tongue, insisting his side must be “s---” to deploy such a defensive approach.
City recorded just 33% possession while battling out a 1–1 draw with the Gunners on Sunday afternoon, the lowest figure ever posted by a Guardiola side during his 17-year managerial career. Mikel Arteta took great pride in these statistics—even though they overlook the fact that Arsenal were limited to just three shots on target, the last of which came via an improbable Gabriel Martinelli lob to snatch a point in stoppage time.
Guardiola insisted that he still wanted to dominate possession after a snide snipe at his critics. “When we defend deeper it is because the other [team] are better or we are s---,” he sniffed.
“I prefer us to regain the ball high up the pitch, [have] a lot of possession to disturb the structure of the opponents and try to punish them. It’s always been like that and always will be like that. If it doesn’t happen it is because we were bad, not because we want to [be defensive].”
The former Barcelona midfielder also defended his team’s increased willingness to quickly find Erling Haaland, who scored a crisp opener against Arsenal on Sunday. “When I started as a footballer under Johan Cruyff, when a team went man-to-man he would say: ‘Pep, when you have the ball as a holding midfielder, look at Romário, look up front,’ so why should we [City] go shorter if that guy is being marked and this guy is being marked?
“If you [the opposition] want to play one against one with Erling [Haaland] then play one against one. If you lose that duel, it will be a goal.”
By the end of a heated press conference, Guardiola had descended into increasingly thinly veiled disdain. “When we won the Premier League we were a boring team, right? So that’s why I said: ‘OK, I’m going to make more counterattacks this season,’” he seethed.
“Maybe the players in the future can talk about how much I’ve changed this season. You can ask them—I think it’s completely the same.
“For example, we changed the way we played against Napoli?” Guardiola asked himself. “Three days later we changed our way of playing? I changed absolutely everything in three days. I must be a really, really good manager.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘We Are S---’—Pep Guardiola Goes on Remarkable Rant Over Man City Style.
