Guardiola not concerned despite Manchester City´s poor defensive record

Pep Guardiola is not worried about Manchester City’s defending despite the reigning champions failing to keep a clean sheet in their last six Premier League matches.

City went 1-0 down against Fulham before fighting back to win 3-2 on Saturday. Their opponents also amassed an expected goals (xG) total of 2.4 compared to City’s 1.55.

It follows a trend of unusually sloppy defensive displays from the champions, who have conceded eight goals in their last six league matches. They also had to come from behind against Brentford in September.

Guardiola, however, is not overly worried.

“Sometimes I give credit. The first goal – why don’t we give credit to them rather than [be critical] defensively? There are actions we can defend better but step by step we will improve,” he said, via the Guardian.

“I would say except [Yoane] Wissa against Brentford, in the other ones we were playing good. It’s not nice to come back from 0-1 but we created chances today to go 1-0 and 2-0.”

.@mateokovacic8 with the equaliser pic.twitter.com/cKONsh3zwh

— Manchester City (@ManCity) October 5, 2024

City allowed Fulham five big chances compared to their one, with the London side taking 11 shots, nine of those from inside the box.

Comparatively, City had 20 shots with only half of those coming from inside the box. However, two of the visitors’ goals came from outside the area with Jeremy Doku and Mateo Kovacic both firing in from distance.

“I’m very happy he scored two goals, he’s not a guy to score [usually] those goals,” Guardiola said of Kovacic, who is one of the midfielders the City boss expects to fill in for the injured Rodri this season.

“We started really well with two chances in two minutes and they switched immediately to five at the back. When they do that, we have one man free on the 18-yard box and that is Kovacic.

“The two goals were because they couldn’t defend that. We have to exploit that more against teams that don’t play five at the back – now opponents know that they can’t leave him [Kovacic] alone, otherwise he will score a goal.”