Manchester City recorded just 33% possession in their 1\u20131 draw with Arsenal on Sunday, the lowest possession figure posted by a Guardiola side in his 17-year managerial career. The statistic became a talking point after Mikel Arteta highlighted the numbers, although Arsenal were limited to three shots on target, the last coming from a Gabriel Martinelli lob in stoppage time that salvaged a point.<\/p>\n
Erling Haaland opened the scoring with a crisp finish, a moment Guardiola used to explain why his side sometimes seek direct options. Of his tactical choices he said: \u201cWhen I started as a footballer under Johan Cruyff, when a team went man-to-man he would say: \u2018Pep, when you have the ball as a holding midfielder, look at Rom\u00e1rio, look up front,\u2019 so why should we [City ] go shorter if that guy is being marked and this guy is being marked?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you [the opposition] want to play one against one with Erling [Haaland] then play one against one. If you lose that duel, it will be a goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guardiola also addressed the wider criticism of his team defending deeper and conceding possession. \u201cWhen we defend deeper it is because the other [team] are better or we are s—,\u201d he sniffed. \u201cI prefer us to regain the ball high up the pitch, [have] a lot of possession to disturb the structure of the opponents and try to punish them. It\u2019s always been like that and always will be like that. If it doesn\u2019t happen it is because we were bad, not because we want to [be defensive].\u201d<\/p>\n
The manager closed the press conference by reflecting on perceptions of the team and his own methods. \u201cWhen we won the Premier League we were a boring team, right? So that\u2019s why I said: \u2018OK, I\u2019m going to make more counterattacks this season,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe the players in the future can talk about how much I\u2019ve changed this season. You can ask them\u2014I think it\u2019s completely the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments underlined Guardiola\u2019s frustration at being judged primarily on possession numbers despite Arsenal\u2019s limited clear chances and Haaland\u2019s decisive contribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guardiola defended City’s tactics after 1-1 draw with Arsenal, calling possession criticisms unfair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,238,969],"tags":[1068,1070],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-manchester-city","category-premier-league","tag-dominance","tag-possession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}