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WHY DOES PEP GUARDIOLA WANT TO "KISS AND SHOUT" AT HERO RAYAN CHERKI
Pep Guardiola credits "energy" over tactics as Man City beat Forest 2-1. Read how Rayan Cherki and Tijani Reijnders secured the win.
Pep Guardiola thinks Manchester City's title challenge comeback isn't about fancy tactics. He said after their tough win against Nottingham Forest that it's all bull****.
He believes the team bounced back from last season's dip because they found their energy again.
"Energy, energy, energy," he said. We lost it last season.
They found it in America during the Club World Cup, where team bonding helped the tired players get a new spark. New players who made an immediate impact helped, too.
Rayan Cherki, who cost €36.5m from Lyon, was the hero this weekend, scoring the winning goal and helping Tijani Reijnders, another newbie from Milan, score the first one.
Cherki is now starting to shine, but it took him a bit to get used to the Premier League. Guardiola still sees some ups and downs in the French attacker's game, but at the City Ground, he wanted Cherki to show his talent.
Guardiola admitted, Sometimes I shout at him, and sometimes I want to kiss him. I have mixed feelings about him.”
But Guardiola seemed happy with Pep Lijnders, the assistant coach. Reijnders' goal came from an adjustment that Guardiola was downplaying. Forest did well to stop City in the first half, only letting them take blocked shots from far away.
But moving Reijnders into a more attacking midfield spot let him run forward unmarked to get Cherki's pass. Guardiola immediately pointed at Lijnders in the technical area and gave him a big hug to show who came up with the switch.
Forest fought back, with Omari Hutchinson scoring, but Cherki scored the winner after Josko Gvardiol headed down Phil Foden's corner. City then switched to a five-defender formation for the final minutes.
"It was a nightmare, a really hard game," Guardiola said. At 75 minutes, I thought if we draw or lose, I'd congratulate Forest because of their Premier League passion.” He felt they would have lost this game last season ten out of ten times, but they kept pushing and believing.
That's why energy is so important to their comeback. It doesn’t mean you're going to win, but you can see the team, he said. Now we have eight wins in a row. It's not easy to do what we do. We need to get better, but this mindset is better.
“After that, we can talk about three defenders, four defenders, wingers, or fullbacks—that's all bull****. We needed energy, and then you have a good environment.
“Last season, how often did you see me judging and criticising the club? I could; I have big numbers in my career as a manager. How many? Never, ever. It's not about you or you or you; it was something… Something was in the fog in Manchester, around our training centre. We missed something.”
Even during last season's rough patch, when injuries and a tight schedule led to an older team finishing far behind Liverpool, he says he never lost hope they'd get their spark back.
“Energy can go down, but energy can go up,” he said. It’s never the same in life. You're never happy or sad all the time. You have to know why to know what we missed to come back. Everything in life… There is the sentence, right? This too shall pass.”
Things improved at their fancy place in Boca Raton, Florida, even though Guardiola was annoyed they lost to Al-Hilal in FIFA's new tournament.
Everyone was happy, he said, with the sun and beach helping. We had a lot of dinners and talks about what to do next season. We wanted to stay longer, just to feel that. I think we turned around there and felt something had changed.
Losing two of their first three Premier League games might just be because the new players needed time to adjust.
“Still, we were figuring out how to get the best out of the players, what they're good at. Sometimes it takes time. Managers aren't magicians; we can't just snap our fingers and make everything clear. You have to find out how they can play as a team.”
Guardiola says this is still a work in progress. People praise him for changing things up more than ever before, adjusting the style for different opponents, but it's also because of who's available to him.
The latest problem is the missing wide players. Oscar Bobb and Jeremy Doku are injured, and Omar Marmoush is at the Africa Cup of Nations with Egypt.
We only have one winger now; the others are injured, he said. We have to change the way we do things. You have to realise, 'Oh, it's not working; we need to change a bit.'
“It’s new players, and the opponents always face us in different ways. Winning helps this process move forward.”
This should make Arsenal feel uneasy.
LEGEND STATUS: ERLING HAALAND EQUALS COLIN BELL’S GOAL RECORD IN FULHAM STROLL TODAY
Erling Haaland equals Colin Bell's scoring record as Man City beat Fulham 3-0. Read how Pep’s side closed the gap on Arsenal.
Erling Haaland climbed to joint-fourth on Manchester City’s all-time scoring chart, tying with Colin Bell, as Pep Guardiola’s team brushed aside Fulham 3-0 and closed the gap on Arsenal.
Haaland’s 153rd goal for City came in a match that felt easy for the home side. They barely broke a sweat at the Etihad on Wednesday, cutting Arsenal’s Premier League lead to just three points.
Antoine Semenyo struck first, keeping his hot streak alive, and Nico O’Reilly added another in a match that was basically one-way traffic, with rain pouring down all night.
City did all their damage before halftime. Job done, Haaland didn’t even bother coming out for the second half.
After struggling for a bit, Haaland seemed to snap back into form with a clutch penalty winner at Liverpool on Sunday. Maybe that’s the spark he needed.
Matching Bell’s tally is no small feat—especially considering Haaland’s done it in just 183 games, while Bell had 492.
Honestly, this game was a walk in the park for City. In the last meeting at Craven Cottage, City led 5-1 after 57 minutes but almost let Fulham back in, scraping by 5-4. This time, there wasn’t even a hint of drama.
Fulham made it easy, coughing up possession over and over and giving City every chance to attack.
You could tell a goal was coming. Phil Foden, starting after a spell on the bench, nearly scored twice early on. O’Reilly wasn’t far off either.
The breakthrough came 24 minutes in. Matheus Nunes whipped in a cross from the right, Haaland nodded it down, and Semenyo slid in to poke it past Bernd Leno.
That was Semenyo’s fifth goal in eight games for City, and his third against Fulham this season; he’d already scored twice against them for Bournemouth back in October.
Fulham did get a sniff at goal when Harry Wilson forced a save from Gianluigi Donnarumma, but City hit right back. Haaland got clipped by Joachim Andersen on a counter, but Semenyo kept going and slipped in O’Reilly, who coolly chipped Leno for 2-0.
City’s third came after Fulham gave the ball away yet again. Rayan Ait-Nouri found Foden, Foden passed to Haaland at the edge of the box, and Haaland buried it in the bottom corner for his first league goal from open play since December.
There was a quick VAR check for a possible penalty, with Semenyo claiming his hair got pulled, but nothing came of it.
City eased off after the break. Fulham tried to respond, and Wilson had a lively run, but it fizzled out.
Even with City playing in second gear, Fulham couldn’t get anything going.
Foden tried his luck from a distance but didn’t really trouble Leno, and Josh King forced a late save from Donnarumma, but that was about it.
ERLING HAALAND’S MENTALITY IS THE ONLY REASON MAN CITY CAN CATCH ARSENAL
Erling Haaland’s late penalty at Anfield has cut Arsenal’s lead to three points, reigniting Manchester City’s title charge.
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Erling Haaland isn’t giving up on the title just yet. After slotting home a penalty deep into stoppage time at Anfield, he made it clear: “The title race isn’t over until it’s actually over.” That late goal kept Manchester City’s hopes alive.
Honestly, things looked grim with six minutes left. Szoboszlai had just smashed in a free kick, and even with Bernardo Silva’s equaliser, City were still staring at an eight-point gap behind Arsenal. But that penalty—Haaland’s first league goal at Anfield—changed the mood. Now, if City beat Fulham at home on Wednesday, the gap shrinks to three points before Arsenal even kick a ball at Brentford the next day.
Haaland tried to play it cool when people pressed him about the win. “It’s just three points, that’s it. Doesn’t matter if it’s Tottenham, whoever,” he said. But then he admitted, “Yeah, I get it. It was a big one.”
He’s not getting carried away, though. “We’ve seen it before—this race goes down to the wire. Right now, Fulham’s all I’m thinking about. There’s still a lot of football left.”
Haaland’s still the league’s top scorer with 21, but his penalty at Anfield was only his second league goal since Christmas. In his first 20 games this season, he couldn’t stop scoring—30 goals for club and country. Lately, though, the goals have dried up, and he knows it.
“Honestly, I haven’t scored enough since the start of the year. I have to be sharper and better at everything. That’s on me—I owe it to the team and to everyone watching.”
He didn’t want to make excuses or talk too much about what’s behind his dip in form. “I don’t think there’s an excuse. Fatigue? Most of it’s in your head. The schedule’s brutal, sure, but for me, it’s all about staying fit and being ready to help the team. That’s what matters most.”
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