Man City and Liverpool played out another thrilling encounter in the Premier League and in this match, Pep Guardiola came up with yet another surprise.
Usually, Man City are a team that like to keep the ball on the ground and build-up play with short and crisp passes but on Sunday, they chose a completely different tactic where they were trying to put long balls over the Liverpool defence.
This tactic worked on several occasions as players like Sterling and Foden managed to get a run-in on goal but in the end, City had to settle for a 2-2 draw.
A lot of people were a bit shocked as to why Man City were resorting to long-ball tactics and to this, Pep Guardiola very humorously explained that he chose to take a leaf out of Klopp’s textbook.
He told the press: “I try to imitate the best, I learn! It was a fantastic game, both teams want to win every game. It was a good game, I had the feeling that with this result, you have to review the game and feel it was missed opportunity, we give them a life.
Pep Guardiola says he's not friends with Jurgen Klopp … but there's nothing but respect between the two 🤝 pic.twitter.com/JcDhZR9H5P
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) April 10, 2022
“But heads up, I said to the team I don’t want one second of sadness. I’m so glad and happy with the way we played. When you do many good things the sadness is there, but I said forget it. We were ourselves, we performed incredibly well and unfortunately, we could not win.
“Every week here in the Premier League, we watch Liverpool and we know what they do, in chances created. We conceded so few and created a lot. In general it was a good performance, so happy and glad for my team.”
Pep Guardiola meant this in humour but we can very clearly see why the Man City boss chose to ditch his tried and tested formula.
Liverpool are a team who play with an incredibly high line so that they can squeeze their opponents in their own half and with the kind of players that Manchester City have, Guardiola was very keen to exploit this area of potential weakness.
No manager has beaten Pep Guardiola more times than Jurgen Klopp.
No manager has beaten Jurgen Klopp more times than Pep Guardiola.
Rent free 🧠 pic.twitter.com/7iyQcQ6BYN
— GOAL (@goal) April 9, 2022
The likes of Matip and Van Dijk are not blessed with great pace which is why Pep wanted to use that massive gap behind the backline to break down Liverpool.
The result was a fair one in terms of the match but Man City will technically be the losers because they have lost a golden chance to move out of reach of Liverpool. Liverpool are still very much in the race and since it’s only a matter of one point, the Premier League title race is far from over.
