Under-fire Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola has blamed the team’s injury crisis for their poor run of form following another defeat to Aston Villa in the Premier League on Saturday.
The defending champions suffered a 2-1 defeat at Villa Park to record a second consecutive defeat in the Premier League which extended their disastrous run.
The Cityzens have now won just once in 12 games in all competitions, losing nine times in the miserable run to further pile more pressure on Pep Guardiola.
The Spaniard has revealed the solution to the team’s poor form, blaming injuries to key players for their inability to bring an end to the slump.
He said: “It can come, it can not come. It depends on us. The solution is to bring the players back. We have just one central defender fit, which is difficult. We are going to try the next game – another opportunity and we don’t think much further than that.”
“We make a really good first half, second half we dropped. We changed our pressing for the reason John [Stones] could not continue. Congratulations Aston Villa and keep going.”
Manchester City have been without Rodri, Oscar Bobb, Nathan Ake, Ruben Dias, and John Stones also joined the growing list of injured players.
Guardiola, however, praised his players for their first-half performance against Aston Villa, and he has backed them to recover their confidence ahead of the busy festive period.
He said: “Today we made a really good game, step by step, we have nice personalities in the team and sooner or later we are going to find it [their form].
“I have to do it [change his approach], back my players, that is what will be different.
“We have good moments, we had chances, more chances than in the [Manchester] United game, but in the second half we dropped and our pressing was not good enough.
“We struggled a little bit and we could not drop them well.
“We found a goal in the end, but too late. We struggle to score and we concede goals.”
Erling Haaland admitted that his performances in recent games have not been good enough, and he is backing Pep Guardiola to find a solution to the winless run.
He said: “Of course we are disappointed, It’s not good enough, it’s not good enough from me.”
Haaland added: “We have to continue. First I’m looking at myself, I haven’t been doing things good enough, I haven’t been scoring my chances. I have to do better, I haven’t been good enough.
“He (Guardiola) won the Premier League six times in seven years, so we will never forget that.
“He will find the solutions. He has been doing that every single year. We still believe in him, we have to work harder than ever right now.”
Guardiola has given his players two days off to clear their heads ahead of their Premier League clash against Everton on Thursday.
Manchester City have now dropped 24 points before the halfway point of the season after only dropping 23 points in the whole of last season.
Guardiola Blames Injury For Poor Form, Backs Players To Bounce Back is first published on The Whistler Newspaper