Pep Guardiola has revealed that his players are now becoming more anxious after suffering a 2-1 defeat to rivals Manchester United in the Premier League on Sunday, Afrosport reports.
The Citizens took the lead through Josko Gvardiol in the first half but were let down by late goals from Bruno Fernandes and Amad Diallo for their eighth loss in their last 11 competitive matches (W1 D2).
Man City are usually known for their high standards but Guardiola admitted that is currently not the case.
“Football, like all of life, is emotion and how you feel,” he told the club website. “Now we are more anxious with the ball and without the ball.
“The worst thing as a defender and striker in the boxes is when you are anxious. You have to have this composure and calm that nothing wrong is going to happen and you are calm when making decisions.
“Momentum and confidence and our standards are high. Myself and the players do it. All the things we have done is because we have solved it.
“I said many times to relax. If you are in the box, always you have tempo and time, now we are not doing that.”
88 – Manchester City were leading until the 88th minute against Manchester United, but ended up losing 2-1 – the latest into a game that a reigning champion has led in the Premier League and lost. Astonishing. pic.twitter.com/9vwTcocgLw
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) December 15, 2024
Meanwhile, Phil Foden has called on his teammates to stick together during this poor run of from.
“…We had control of the game 1-0 up. You can concede at 1-1 but you can’t concede straight after, that’s unacceptable. It’s just one of those, it’s the way it is” he said.
“We have to stick together now, rebuild and go again. We’ve not been used to losing this amount of games in a short period. But sometimes you have to experience this in life, you can’t always win.
“When things go wrong they then seem to go worse. We have to stick together and regroup.”
Man City have dropped to fifth on the Premier League table and are now nine points behind leaders Liverpool after 16 games.
