Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola gave a scathing assessment of his side’s performance after they went out of the League Cup in a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Southampton on Wednesday.
The competition has long been dominated by City, who have won the Cup on six occasions since 2014, but have been knocked out before the semi-finals again as many times.
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For just the third season in charge of City boss Pep Guardiola, and the first time since 2018, his side didn’t even manage a shot on target.
“There’s a reason why we haven’t been,” he told Sky Sports when asked about that statistic.
Southampton struck twice before the half hour mark and defended well to limit City’s chances going forward despite only having 28% possession.
Guardiola was immediately in the analysis of his side’s performance, saying to BBC Radio 5 Live: “The team won better. We didn’t play well, we didn’t play well at the beginning. Many games are not good and can start. win and not do.
“When you’re not ready to play this game, you’re going to be one inch late and you’re not going to score a goal. When you’re ready, you’re going to score a goal.”
“Today was a bad night, the opponent was better so we congratulate them. You have to deserve to win games and we didn’t deserve it tonight.”
Guardiola had named a strong side with Joao Cancelo, Jack Grealish, Ilkay Gundogan and Kalvin Phillips among the starters, but without midfielder Gundogan’s first shot wide they made little impact on the game.
Guardiola’s comments were echoed by Gundogano, who was disappointed in his side’s actions.
“It’s definitely not what we wanted,” German Sports told Sky.
“In the Carabao Cup we had hope to perish but with that” [performance] no chance It was a little while from us.
“When we made a lot of mistakes with the ball, we missed a lot of passes, he gave them the ball too easy and that resulted in two goals.
“Today we were not good enough to make chances, not good enough to score the goal. A mix of performance from all the teams gives this result.”
City will have to improve on their next game on Saturday, away to Premier League derby neighbors Manchester United, who have won their last eight competitive games.
