Players must get message from Pep rant

THIS was a Pep Guardiola we haven't seen before.

- JOE BRAY

 

The City manager has been intense, emotional and angry at various points across his six-and-a-half year spell at the Etihad, but rarely have all of those combined to the extent that they did on Thursday night.

Guardiola had ticked off his broadcast interviews with a number of eye-catching statements, where he accused his players of lacking guts and the fans of being too quiet in City's 4-2 comeback win over Tottenham. When he spoke to the written media in his post-match press conference, it felt as though weeks worth of frustrations, maybe even months, spilled out all at once.

While Guardiola covered a lot of ground in his press conference, one point was clear: something wasn't right, and if it didn't change, then City will have no chance of winning the Premier League.

"Arsenal will destroy us," he said, if City replicated their performance against Spurs.

"Without change we aren't going to win anything," he began, leading onto a first answer about how City's recent performances have lacked passion. He pointed to Tottenham's surrounding of the referee on multiple occasions, asking 'who defends [Rico Lewis]?' after Spurs targeted City's teenage defender physically.