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ETIHAD STADIUM, MANCHESTER – On the event of his one centesimal Champions League match as supervisor, it was becoming that Pep Guardiola dropped a weird teamsheet.
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There is a explicit corridor of infamy for this form of factor that Metropolis supporters can pull effortlessly from the reminiscence banks. How about benching Sergio Aguero at Camp Nou in 2016 (0-4), or taking part in midfield diamond for the primary time that season in a 2018 quarterfinal at Anfield (0-3 inside half an hour).
Most will level to the confused 1-0 ultimate defeat to in Porto in 2021, when Guardiola despatched out a group with no discernible holding midfield, because the nadir. However actual ones know that selecting a 3-5-2 to protect towards an unremarkable Lyon group’s risk on the break, solely to concede three on the break to lose within the 2020 quarterfinals, was as unhealthy because it ever obtained.
The opposite aspect of that is that when Guardiola tries one thing uncommon and it really works, as he does often, nobody bats an eyelid. Take the double false-nine gambit that baffled to arrange the Lyon debacle, or John Stones shuttling from centre-back to attacking midfield positions within the 2023 ultimate win over Inter Milan.
Anyway, when Guardiola handed in his choice for Wednesday evening’s defeat to Bayer Leverkusen, there have been eyebrows raised however no galaxy-braining. The reason was rather more mundane.
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Why did Pep Guardiola make 10 modifications for Man Metropolis vs. Bayer Leverkusen?
“I needed [to make] 11 [changes], however I haven’t got the participant to do 11,” Guardiola advised TNT Sport earlier than the sport.
“When you’ve got a squad with 22 gamers and simply play 11, 11, 11, you do not have 22, you’ve got 11. Now we have to do it collectively, lots of video games and we want contemporary legs, everyone concerned, and I like to let the gamers [play].
“That is why they’re Man Metropolis gamers, they’re actually good all of them – I made a decision this line-up.”
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This was affirmation that Guardiola had principally picked his Carabao Cup group. By the point Patril Schick made it 2-0 early within the second half, it was clear the 2023/24 Bundesliga winners had been a bit higher than the Huddersfield City and Swansea Metropolis sides Metropolis have swept apart in England’s secondary cup competitors this season.
Guardiola has picked unchanged groups for Metropolis’s previous three Premier League video games. That is uncommon in itself – ask any FPL supervisor. However Metropolis are nonetheless a group in transition after their 2024/25 season collapsed in on itself round this time final yr and compelled the membership into two very busy switch home windows.
In consequence, Guardiola remains to be attempting to groove issues, such because the on-field relationship between twin creators Phil Foden and Rayan and how one can get the extent of management he craves in a group taking part in a bit of extra on to harness .
Haaland Manchester Metropolis
He is determined that repetition is one of the best ways in direction of this. Guardiola tends to not go to a daily, trusted XI till the season run-in, when the physique of labor compiled by his gamers over the earlier 9 months leaves no room for doubt. When Metropolis had been churning to title after title, he’d typically change two or three every recreation for the weekend-midweek slog of mid-season.
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Guardiola additionally retains mentioning “vibes” in his press conferences and the way essential it’s to take care of a constructive collective outlook, which feels pointed within the context of how issues fell aside final time round, when the group had been perilously brittle and captain Kyle Walker determined to go of to AC Milan on mortgage in January.
Nonetheless, it isn’t nice for morale when an unfamiliar group who’ve heard all about how reliant Metropolis are on Haaland for objectives do not create a serviceable probability and make it back-to-back defeats after Saturday’s irritating reverse at Newcastle. The vibes did not really feel implausible for Rico Lewis, Oscar Bobb and Rayan Ait-Nouri, both, after they had been hooked after a dismal opening 45 minutes. Metropolis appeared extra threatening by the point Haaland, Foden and Jeremy Doku had been all working in tandem, however by that stage the sport had gone.
Guardiola tells us in most Champions League press conferences how a lot he adores the competitors. The truth that he was keen to ship out a scratch aspect says lots concerning the lack of jeopardy on this expanded format. Metropolis have already got 10 factors and two wins from their ultimate three video games towards Actual Madrid, Bodo/Glimt and Galatasaray ought to be sufficient to see them by way of within the prime eight. Nonetheless, defeat on the Santiago Bernabeu on December 10 would possibly make tonight’s choices look much more silly.
“Yeah, too many modifications,” Guardiola stated in his post-match information convention. “In lengthy seasons, everyone needs to be concerned, however perhaps it was an excessive amount of, seeing the outcome. They performed to not make errors, as a substitute of taking part in to do what we needed to do. When you’re considering to not punish the [opponent], you aren’t free, you aren’t relaxed. Not simply with the ball, with out the ball. We had been shut however not aggressive sufficient.
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“For those who play very often, you are feeling extra snug and any individual [who doesn’t play often] thinks they do not wish to do one thing fallacious for the group, however in that second, it’s important to be free and make that mistake. Break the traces, make a motion, go shut and do what it’s important to do. Errors are errors, however there are actions to be shut and we’re not there many instances.”
He’d by no means admit this, however Guardiola made a calculation that two Premier League video games within the house of 4 days towards 18th-place and Fifteenth-place had been extra essential and had much less margin for error than a supposedly showpiece evening towards the group third within the Bundesliga. are seven factors up the highway and one thing needed to give, though the listless efficiency of Metropolis’s understudies confirmed the depth of high quality most likely is not there for a title cost.
Guardiola has had many higher Champions League nights in his Metropolis century and some much more painful. However maybe by no means any fairly as unusual.