Coach Pep Guardiola admitted that he rotated his players too much, causing Man City to lose - Photo: REUTERS
By reaching 100 Champions League games with Man City, Pep Guardiola joined Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger in legendary status. However, the milestone was accompanied by a nightmare night at the Etihad.
This is Man City's first home defeat in the Champions League group stage since September 2018.
It is worth mentioning that the last time happened when Pep was absent (banned from coaching) and Mikel Arteta was the temporary coach. This time, Pep himself caused the defeat by rotating his personnel, which was considered too risky.
Coach Pep Guardiola has always been famous for his uncompromising rotation philosophy. The decision to change 10 players from the team that lost to Newcastle last weekend is not only a habit, but also a solution to the injury situation.
According to statistics from The Athletic before the weekend, Man City are one of the two teams leading the Premier League in terms of injuries with 16 cases since the beginning of the season. These problems forced Pep to make 28 changes in 11 Premier League rounds - the second most in the tournament.
However, against Leverkusen, the change was so big that it completely disrupted the rhythm of the game. In the 65th minute, when the home team was 0-2 down, Pep hurriedly sent Doku, Foden, Cherki and Haaland onto the field.
In the final 25 minutes, Erling Haaland alone created an expected goals (xG) value of 0.62 - the highest number of the match, but it was all too late.
Speaking after the match with TNT Sport, Pep Guardiola frankly admitted his mistake, confirming that his philosophy this time had exceeded the safety limit:
"I have to accept the criticism for rotating the squad. If we had won, this wouldn't have been a problem. So I have to accept that perhaps I changed too many personnel."
"My players played with the fear of making mistakes instead of doing what they needed to do. It was not the performance we expected. I take full responsibility. We lacked something. We missed an unbelievable chance and now we have to fight with all our might in the remaining matches," the 54-year-old coach continued to take full responsibility.
Pep then explained the reason for this somewhat "excessive" rotation: "I always want to be kind and generous by giving everyone a chance, because I feel that after the national team training camp, every three or four days there is a match and no human being can stand that frequency of matches."
However, he also put pressure on the reserve players: "My players tried, but when you are in a big team, you have to prove yourself. All of them, including the players who came on from the bench, were the same. Every shot was blocked, they missed 10 times," the Man City captain added.
Currently Man City has 10 points and is ranked 6th in the Champions League group stage.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/hlv-pep-guardiola-thua-nhan-sai-lam-tiet-lo-li-do-khien-man-city-thua-tran-20251126093539627.htm
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