How Man City Struggled Against Newcastle – Guardiola 

Pep Guardiola identified his team’s inability to create more goal scoring chances through defence splitting passes as the undoing of Manchester City in Sunday’s 3-3 draw against Newcastle United at Saint James Park.

Ilkay Gundogan, Erling Haaland and Bernardo Silva scored City’s goals in the clash as Guardiola’s team looked slick in the opening stages, but after about 25 minutes the hosts started to cut through City’s defence with ease.

Guardiola ‘s defenders struggled to cope with the pace of Allan Saint-Maximin and Venezuelan forward Miguel Almiron throughout the game.

Almiron and Callum Wilson (double) were The Toons’ goalscorers.

“They [Newcastle] have everything, pace and quality,” Guardiola said post match when asked what he thought of Newcastle’s performance.

“[St James’ Park is a] difficult place to come, we behaved really really good again, but the only problem is that when we break the lines and run if you finish the action [attack] it’s no problem, but if you don’t finish you don’t arrive to control Saint-Maximin and Almiron,” the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager told the media.