Frustrated manager Josep Guardiola criticized Manchester City for only playing “the first half” of their 1-1 draw with Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday, leaving the champions with a game in hand. They are now in 3rd place, 4 points behind Liverpool.
Raheem Sterling’s 43rd-minute goal broke through City’s lax defense in the early stages, and Rodri’s late equalizer sealed the points.
“In the second half, we played unbelievably well,” Guardiola said.The first half wasn’t ours. [normal] Levels to counter these [level of] Teams must play 90 minutes, not just half. ”
Rodri agreed with his manager. “When you defend like we do, you don’t get more points. We weren’t very good in the first half,” said the midfielder. “We conceded another easy goal. We have to defend better. We have to be honest with ourselves.” [as] From then on, it gets harder than usual. ”
Rodri was unhappy with referee Andy Madrid. “I don’t want to talk about the referee, but I don’t remember a game where there were so many VAR checks and nothing was checked on us. Hey, hey.” I always look at the referee’s face and it’s like, “I don’t know what’s going on now. “Go ahead, go ahead,” he said.
Guardiola will not be in the referee’s draw, but City’s game will be at home to Brentford on Tuesday.
“We will try to get points,” said the City manager. “I’m trying to focus on my team, but I’m disappointed with this result. We did our best and ended up 1-1.”
Mauricio Pochettino was satisfied with the draw ahead of next Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Liverpool.
“We are a very young team and we need to live games like this to improve and create the spirit we need. I’m very happy,” said the Chelsea manager. “I told the players that I’m very proud of them. In the last three games, we’ve started to create a very good spirit. That’s the way we want to build the team. Today I It was a very good opportunity for us to show that we are going where we want to be. We show that we want to be competitive in every game.
“Right now we have a very good match against Liverpool. The most important thing is to keep believing. Now we have to recover and prepare as much as possible for the match. We need to feel that it is possible to beat Liverpool. I think we will be playing against the second best team in the world. I think belief is the most important thing, so now we can recover and look towards the final. We need to prepare.”
