Habeeb Kuranga
After the final whistle at St. Mary Stadium, Manchester City head coach, Pep Guardiola lashed in on his players for their below par performance against Southampton.
The Cityzens were defeated by two goals to nil in the quarterfinals of the Carabao cup by the Saints on Wednesday night. Two quick goals from Sekou Mara and Moussa Djenepo in the first half ensured Southampton book their place in the Semifinals where they will be playing against Newcastle United in a two-legged affair.
The defeat saw Guardiola tearing his players apart in the post match conference. He said, “The better team won. We didn’t play good, we didn’t play well in the beginning. There are many games you can start not good and overcome and we didn’t do it.”
The City boss went on to shed light on why he felt his players were never going to secure the win, “When you are not prepared to play this game you arrive one inch late and don’t score a goal. When you are prepared you score the goal.
“Today was a bad night, the opponent was better so we have to congratulate them. To win games you have to deserve it and tonight we didn’t deserve it.”
Although, City started with a much weaker team than their usual, but, Pep rung the changes and brought on his heavyweights including his talismen in Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne. The changes didn’t have any impact on the game as it ended in the same scoreline as the first half.
The match was a bit historic as it was the first time Man City failed to register a single shot on target since 2018 when they were defeated at the hands of Liverpool by three goals to nothing in the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League.
The Sky Blues have fell short to win the Carabao cup for the second year running after they won four in a row between 2017/18 to 2020/21. They are currently five points behind Arsenal in the English Premier League Standings. Although, they are still in contention to win the League title and the FA cup as well as the UCL come the end of the season.
