Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola opened himself up to the slings and arrows he felt he “deserved” for not starting Rayan Cherki in Saturday night’s 1–1 draw to West Ham United.
Heading into the trip to the capital, Guardiola had warned his side that if they were to drop points the Premier League title race with Arsenal “will be over.” City took a slightly fortuitous lead at London Stadium through Bernardo Silva’s skewed cross before conceding the only shot West Ham would have throughout the entire 90 minutes.
City racked up 24 efforts, forcing Mads Hermansen into five saves, yet struggled to carve open any clear opportunities when faced with a stubborn rearguard. Antoine Semenyo, in particular, seemed to find it hard while operating in a new central attacking midfield role rather than the center forward tandem he has so often taken up.
It was put to Guardiola that Cherki would have been more suited to this lock-picking position, especially as he would have been fresh after not starting the midweek Champions League collapse to Real Madrid.
“You are right, yeah. Absolutely. For that role, absolutely. There is no-one better than him,” the Catalan tactician candidly conceded. When quizzed on why Cherki instead started on the bench, only coming on for the final half-hour, Guardiola freely turned the spotlight onto himself.
“Bad selection,” he sighed, “now you can criticize me incredibly, for the selection, now I deserve it.”
Guardiola Endures a Week of Mortality
Manchester City’s 3–1 thumping of Newcastle United in the FA Cup fifth round was held up by Guardiola as an example of his ideal modern perception of game. Players were returning seamlessly from injury, a new system seemed to be fully firing and the quadruple hopes were very much alive and well. One week later, City now face a mountain to climb in both the Champions League and Premier League.
Guardiola was widely pilloried for his team selection in the 3–0 reverse at the Bernabéu. By the former Barcelona boss’s own admission, his remarkably front-footed 4-2-4 was designed to blitz this waning iteration of Real Madrid. It largely worked for the first 20 minutes. And then Fede Valverde scored, bringing to mind the old Mike Tyson mantra: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
City’s glass jaw was exposed in the Spanish capital and Guardiola went to the opposite extreme fearing another rebuke against West Ham.
“It’s sometimes for the balance,” Guardiola said of his decision to overlook Cherki, a player capable of slicing open any defense with the type of high-risk passes which can often go astray and lead to a counterattack for the opposition.
“We learned in the beginning [of the season] that when we played Erling [Haaland] in that moment with Jérémy [Doku] or Cherki that we are incredibly unbalanced, we do not have the stability that teams in the Premier League have to have and that is why I try to handle it for that.
“It’s a team that is growing, I think that from the beginning we’ve grown a lot but still it is not finished business. It is like that sometimes but I will not say that I don’t love playing with Rayan, especially when he came from the bench, always the impact is unbelievable.
“But sometimes he has not the speed. The team is always stable when Semenyo and Nico O’Reilly play in the winger position and go inside, arrive to the box, they are really, really good. I’m finding still the best way to have stability and consistency in the team.”
Guardiola will have to get his selections right if he wants to give City any chance of maintaining their title tilt. Although that may already be impossible in the eyes of some of his players.
Rodri Makes Surprise Premier League Title Admission
Rodri’s infamous swipe at Arsenal’s flawed title-chasing mentality from the 2023–24 campaign has gotten a lot of traction recently. Yet, the Manchester City midfielder didn’t exactly portray a bullet-proof mindset after slipping nine points behind the Gunners over the weekend, accepting that the “distance is too far.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Rodri shrugged when asked by TNT Sports if the title race was over. “We’re not going to drop hands, we’re going to keep fighting. We know it’s going to be difficult because we have this experience of what you need to win at the end. I think the distance is too far but we’re going to fight until the end.
“Now is a moment of no regrets.
“Today we showed a little bit of what the season was, ups and downs, then maybe the last pass or the last strike can make the difference. Football is about goals and we couldn’t find the players to have numbers in terms of goals. That’s the most important thing in football because we created the chances, we controlled the games but this is what makes the difference.”
