'Pep lacks confidence in current City team'

After Pep Guardiola’s 60lst match as manager of a topflight club ended, one statistic stood out.

- Shahid Judge

Michael Owen.

(GETTY IMAGES)

In all his time as manager of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and now City, the 54-year-old manager has set his teams to play attacking, possession-based football. But against Arsenal, he substituted attackers with defensive players, and got his team to drop back and defend a narrow 1-0 lead. In the end, City managed only 33% possession, the lowest ever for a Guardiola-led team and a 1-1 draw.

“This is something I've never seen from Pep,” said Michael ‘Owen, the former England striker and now pundit, to HT. “Bringing defenders on and taking off players that can keep the bail. Maybe (he has) a lack of confidence in his current team.”

In his nine completed seasons as City’s manager, Guardiola led his team to six Premier League titles. That included four titles in succession, a streak that ended last term as City finished third.