Man City manager Pep Guardiola is often regarded as one of the best tacticians in the world of football but there’s no denying that even the great man can get it wrong sometimes.
And that’s exactly what happened at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium when the Lilywhites outplayed and outclassed Man City in the Champions League.
The first leg of the quarter-finals was played on Tuesday and Spurs were easily the best team on the night.
Not only did the home team control the game for most of the 90 minutes but towards the dying minutes, Son Heung-Min also managed to grab a goal which means Pochettino will now have a precious lead to take to the Etihad.
But after the game, a lot of pundits have raised fingers at the Man City boss and his decision to tinker with the formation which meant the likes of Sane and De Bruyne started on the bench.
And now Man City midfielder Fernandinho has come out to explain why Guardiola chose to field such a system.
“You see we played a little bit different, especially in a defensive way with two holding midfielders,” said Fernandinho(as reported).
“We tried to close the midfield because they try to concentrate their game in the middle. We tried to do that and we did so well but at the end, we conceded a goal.
“We are going to see if Pep likes it for the next game otherwise we will change and try and go for the game and win the game.”
Fernandinho also talked about this loss affecting Man City’s quadruple hopes this season.
“I personally don’t think about that, just take it game by game because if you start thinking a lot of things about that you are just going to get confused,” he said.
“The most important thing is to just take it game by game, so we have a tough game against Crystal Palace on Sunday and it is going to be massive for us in the title race.
“It wasn’t the result we wanted, but this is a Champions League tie so we have the tie at home now. I think we have all the conditions to play better and win the game and go to the semi-final.
“Of course when you lose any game the feeling is so bad. But you have to be professional and have to be clever and overcome this situation and try to work on that and try to fix the problem and solve for the next game.”
