Pep Guardiola has disagreed with Bernardo Silva’s observation about how Manchester City have approached big games this season.
The Premier League champions made light work of Bayern Munich, who were tipped to be a difficult opponent. They managed their second-leg impressively following the 3-0 win at the Etihad last week, eventually running out 4-1 winners on aggregate to make the last four.
City struggled under Pep Guardiola in Europe in the early years of his tenure with the Catalan often accused of overthinking the big games as they were knocked out by the likes of Monaco, Tottenham and Lyon.
Now, though, the squad look to have cracked it and Bernardo admits they have had to accept periods facing heavy pressure against the top sides.
He told : “In the Champions League we learn from our past mistakes and what we understand now is that, before we would always try and dominate the game for 90 minutes, controlling it in their final third.”
“But in this competition against the likes of Bayern Munich, PSG, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Liverpool you need to accept that sometimes you have to defend, be consistent, work hard not to give them easy chances. That’s what we’ve been trying to work on in the present because in the past we’ve had a lot of frustrating nights.”
When Guardiola was asked ahead of the Arsenal game if his team are more comfortable with ‘suffering’ than they used to be, he didn’t quite agree with his star midfielder.
“I heard these words from Bernardo but I try to plan the game to avoid that as much as possible, I don’t like to suffer and the opponents has chances,” Guardiola said.
“I try to minimise that as much as possible. Every single day I work to have 90 minutes control of the game – score a lot of goals, concede few chances – but at the same time you have to accept sometimes it won’t happen because sometimes the opponent plays with the ball, you can play badly and can lose the game and the opponent can do many good things.
“The difference is maybe because the defenders are proper defenders [four centre-backs in back four] and defend well and that helps us to be solid but tomorrow this is not going to happen for the way they play.”
City will play their most important match of the Premier League season to date when they take on Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday.
The Gunners are currently five points clear at the top of the table, although they have played two games more than closest chasers City.
Arsenal have drawn their last three league fixtures – most recently a 3-3 thriller against Southampton – while City have won six league games on the bounce and are unbeaten in 16 matches in all competitions.
