Pep Guardiola admitted he doesn’t have the answer for Manchester City’s wastefulness at Nottingham Forest this weekend. City created chance after chance at Forest, hoping to remain top of the Premier League, but only had one goal to show for their efforts thanks to Bernardo Silva. Phil Foden, Aymeric Laporte and Erling Haaland were guilty of missing glorious chances, while Kevin De Bruyne dragged a number of shots well wide from good positions. While Guardiola was pleased with his side’s performance and took a philosophical view of the draw, he also accepted that he can’t put his finger on why City’s clinical finishing deserted them in Nottingham.
Pep Guardiola said: “The expected goals after the game… the way we played, the chances we create. We are always there, we are on top. We play to create more chances and concede few and being stable as a team. Generally we are doing that, most of the time. We didn’t get what we deserved but football is not about what you deserve. You have to score the goals. Phil had to score. Haaland had to score. Ayme had to score. The shots from Kevin had to be more accurate. We were stable in many things. Set pieces we defended well, we attacked well. It’s about putting the ball in the net. The players know it. You think Phil, Ayme and Erling didn’t want to score? They wanted to score. But we didn’t do it. You ask me for an explanation for that and I don’t have it. You ask why? I don’t have it. The managers have to answer all the questions but we don’t know the truth! Sometimes it happens. But I liked the way we played, for the way we behaved.”
With the return of the Champions League this week sending City to RB Leipzig for their last-16 first leg, Guardiola challenged his side to turn any frustrations into motivation in Germany.
Pep Guardiola said: “It’s about recovering the team, focus on the next game and see what happens. In general we made a really good game. It’s another competition. A few days ago we were happy, now we are sad. That’s the business, the job and we have to keep going. We will study Leipzig, a very tough opponent. We suffered there two years ago and we know how good they are. Their physicality is amazing, with the runners, and now it is to recover the players as much as possible.”
