Premier League Gary Neville pinpoints Guardiola’s ‘mistake’ which makes City ‘vulnerable’

Gary Neville Guardiola

Manchester United legend Gary Neville claims City boss Pep Guardiola made a mistake which is now making Manchester vulnerable.

Speaking to SkyBet, Neville said the Spanish tactician should have kept Joao Cancelo instead of letting him join Bayern Munich in the January transfer window.

According to him, the Portugues star was the right man to play at left-back for Manchester City since Guardiola left Oleksandr Zinchenko for Arsenal in the summer.

Now, man City has Portugues midfielder Bernardo Silva as their left-back now or sometimes Nathan Ake who is a centre-back. And this weakens according to Gary Neville.

Read more : Sadio Mane gives own verdict over Jürgen Klopp future at Liverpool

“You can almost get away with a centre-back or a midfielder playing at right-back – for some reason, you can very rarely get away with that at left-back. I feel that Manchester City never tied that position down”, Neville said as per The Mirror.

“We’re all worried about questioning Pep Guardiola – looking back now, Sir Alex Ferguson accepted a lot of his mistakes, but only after he retired. He said selling Jaap Stam was a big mistake and cost us for two years.

“I think we are living in Pep’s ‘mistake’ here, where Manchester City haven’t got a left back and they’re playing Bernardo Silva there in the odd game. That is a mistake that he has obviously contributed towards.

“I feel a bit embarrassed criticising Jurgen Klopp or Pep Guardiola, but even Sir Alex, who won 13 titles and got 99.9% of his decision-making right – he came out after he retired and spoke about the Barcelona final at Wembley in the Champions League (in 2011) and other moments where he knows he got it wrong.

“We should be quite confident in saying that what we’re watching at the moment is a team that is lacking balance on the left-hand side, and that’s why they’re not getting to their standards. They’re playing Nathan Ake there, he struggles on the ball at times. Bernardo Silva has played there as well, but he’s a massive vulnerability. The goal they conceded against Nottingham Forest was because of having Bernardo Silva in that position.

“Bernardo Silva’s position at left-back has driven me crazy in these last few weeks. He was in that position when he scored against Nottingham Forest, but it makes Manchester City look vulnerable. If City play that system away from home, Arsenal will win the league”, he added.


Aimé ATTI

Aimé ATTI is a bilingual journalist who breathes football and shares his passion on Africa Top Sports

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