Pep Guardiola has refused to lay the blame of Manchester City surprise 2-3 defeat at the feat of any of his players while implying that Norwich were lucky to grab all three points.
The Manchester City manager could only watch in disbelief as his team suffered a loss for the first time in eight months. Pep however maintained that his team played well and didn't deserve to lose, reports Soccernet.ng
“People cannot expect we will win every game or get to 100 points every season,” said Pep after the encounter
“Sometimes games like this happen – we had our chances to score but didn’t, so congratulations to Norwich.
“It is football – we had many opportunities today, they had three or four and scored three goals. The first one was a set-piece we didn’t defend, the second we were caught on the counter-attack and the third came from a mistake, but we know what we are as a team, we know what we have done and we know what we are going to do.
“I love my players and it’s a pleasure to be with them.
“They didn’t create so many chances, but they got three goals – we played Bournemouth and they had more chances than Norwich did today, but we won that game – football can sometimes do this.
“We’ve defended set-pieces really well in the past and in four years, our standard has been so high, so it is not a weakness.
“Even at 2-0, we knew we were still in it because we can create a lot of chances in a short space of time, but the third goal hurt us because we had started well and we were there, but in the end it didn’t happen. In football you can't always avoid mistakes.
“They are a really good team with good players who have quality, we saw that in the Championship last year, they were clinical today.
“We did not have urgency in the final third that we normally have.
“Even at 3-2 we had chances to make it 3-3 – this team never gives up and that’s why we have done what we have done.
“John (Stones) and Nico (Otamendi) have played together many times and been a huge part of what we have done, but Kompany is now in Belgium, Laporte is injured and these are the defenders we have at this moment.
“Yes, we have Ferna (Fernandinho) and some younger players, but it is not a worry.
“So, we go away, we improve from this and we move on and get better.”
