Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola spoke about the improvement he has seen in his side in the last three matches.
Pep Guardiola is starting to believe that Manchester City are capable of competing for 90 minutes after being impressed in their last three performances. The Blues have been plagued all season by problems in the second half of matches that have led to dropped points in the Premier League and Champions League.
The start of 2026 was particularly painful for City when injuries bit the hardest, with Chelsea and Brighton coming from behind to pick up draws at the Etihad and Spurs claiming a point at home from 2-0 down. However, Guardiola had been concerned about the issue from the opening day win at Wolves, and they lost a few weeks later to Brighton having led after an hour.
City dropped more points at home to Nottingham Forest in the last week, but Guardiola was happier with that second half despite conceding two goals (and scoring one). Added to the defensive resilience shown to shut out Leeds at Elland Road and the two goals scored to put the FA Cup fifth round tie beyond Newcastle at St James’ Park, the City manager reckons the squad is now strong enough to avoid dropping after half-time.
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“We fought and I’m happy because in the last three games our second half was quite similar in the first half and all the season we dropped a lot – otherwise we would be in an incredible position in the Premier League,” he said. “It’s because we didn’t have enough tools and players being available to do some changes, but Nico Gonzalez helped us a lot in the absence of Rodri and today he was back again. The partnership with Nico O’Reilly was outstanding, both physicality and have the ball – really good.”
Guardiola made ten changes for the win over Newcastle and that included first starts for wingers Savinho and Jeremy Doku after injury. City have moved to a more narrow 4-2-2-2 formation since Savinho’s injury and enjoyed some impressive performances and results in that shape – but having the wingers back gives Guardiola more options for different games that should also help City to maintain their form; it is now 11 games unbeaten since they lost to Bodo/Glimt in a game where the manager lamented his lack of wide players.
“We learned a lot because in the other way we played really good but we didn’t have these players and without that it is more difficult,” he said. “We took good results in the other shape but especially with the teams that I remember in Bodo and the other ones they are so narrow, bringing the ball to the wingers and having the ability to drop them and make turns and movements in behind, how good Matheus played in the pockets and the movements from Tijjani and Omar because in between the lines there are no spaces.
“Newcastle don’t allow spaces, Bodo/Glimt don’t have spaces, you have to attack from there and both was massive. Savinho was injured for more than two months and Jeremy was also injured for a long time and Omar, Antoine can do that but the rest are not proper wingers. Oscar Bobb was injured most of the time so they helped us a lot today, without wingers it would have been much more difficult.”
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