“Maybe it is not a good idea,” admitted Pep Guardiola before watching Manchester City surrender again vs Liverpool. Everything he saw and everything he did in the following 90 minutes showed it wasn’t.. Guardiola was talking about his unprecedented tactical change in one of City’s biggest games of the season. He has seen City struggle against the better sides all campaign, most of all at Real Madrid this week. If that defeat brutally exposed how far City have slipped off the Champions League standard, then this capitulation to Liverpool was the same story domestically.. So he abandoned the very passing principles he has vowed to stick to even when everything is going wrong.. Madrid and Liverpool are the two best sides City will face all season and they have come within five days of each other. Guardiola has used 19 players in those games and not come close to laying a glove on either opponent, albeit without Erling Haaland and Rodri.. The manager has spoken about City’s inability to compete with more physical sides, and their loss of control with the ball and in the middle. They used to play their way out of bad runs, they can’t even play their way out of the area this season and Guardiola could only watch on, emotionless, when passes went astray against Liverpool.. He had nothing to lose by naming a side that ceded the ball in the middle but focussed on pace and one-on-one duels in the final third. He admitted to the Sky Sports cameras that it might not work, yet having seen his side cut open in midfield for the last few months, it was worth a change.. Better to have a go than get played off the park again – but it wasn’t a Guardiola game plan. It was a hopeful one with all other ideas exhausted.. There were shoots of promise, but not enough. Jeremy Doku beat Trent Alexander-Arnold every time but what is the point when you do nothing with it. Omar Marmoush was busy, yet was clumsily offside when finishing well past Alisson.. Guardiola’s tactical experiment – abandoning his tried-and-tested principles – simply wasn’t as effective as Arne Slot’s containment plan. They kept City out in one box and were ruthless in the other. As soon as Salah scored, there was never any way back.. “We have done something we have not tried for many games which was we brought them to their box and tried to beat them there,” Guardiola said after the game.. “The tactic was to arrive in the final third and the byline and it happened a lot but we did not score. We missed the next bit a little bit and with crosses it is almost impossible to do it because of their size. We could not find the next step.”. For all that Liverpool thoroughly deserve the title, this is not the best Liverpool side Guardiola has faced. And Slot went conservative at the Etihad, declining to play a recognised striker as Liverpool were content to let City have most of the ball.. It was a training-ground move and a ruthless break that earned Liverpool a second 2-0 win over City of the season but both Slot and Guardiola know that 4-0 aggregate scoreline flatters City.. Guardiola tried something different against Liverpool and it didn’t work and he never looked convinced by it. He sent his players out earlier than usual after half-time, and didn’t offer any last-minute instructions like he usually does. He looked frustrated in the Manchester rain, getting annoyed at Doku when he ran another good crossing opportunity out of play.. Kevin De Bruyne was first off on 65 minutes, followed by Marmoush, Nico Gonzalez and Nathan Ake. De Bruyne was poor, Marmoush wasteful, but City have six days before an FA Cup clash with a Championship side. The replacements were one-dimensional and an admission that the game was gone.. Guardiola had to listen to Liverpool fans sing triumphantly that they were going to win the title City have claimed for the last four years. And despite all the injuries, he got it wrong in a final chance to slow the Liverpool procession. To inflict one final blow in a forgettable season.. He wore a rueful smile when shaking hands with Slot at full-time. No excuses, no contest.. Article continues below. More worrying for City was that he didn’t seem to have any other option than playing a style he doesn’t believe in. Or any Plan B to change it.
