Manchester City’s players showed their support for Ilkay Gundogan by wearing shirts bearing the injured midfielder’s name just before kick-off. Gundogan is expected to miss the rest of the season after suffering anterior cruciate knee ligament damage during Wednesday’s 2-0 win over Watford. Some felt the tribute was over the top, but Gundogan appreciated the gesture, tweeting: “Thanks to my teammates & of course — congrats to my boys to this crucial win against #AFC PS: Don’t worry — I’m still alive.”
Problem solved for Guardiola
Pep Guardiola highlighted his team’s inability to deal with knock-downs from aerial duels as a weakness this week and he has been working hard to improve that area. “The last three days we spent two and a half hours on second balls on the training field,” the City head coach said. “It works. It is part of the game here. You have to be compact for the second balls. The last couple of games we were better in that sense. We are not a tall or physical team like most of the teams in England but you must be in the right position.”
‘Fancy playing for me again?’
It was a case of friends reunited at the Etihad yesterday as Pep Guardiola bumped into Alexis Sánchez for the first time since his appointment as Manchester City head coach. Guardiola coached Sánchez for one season at Barcelona and the pair shared a warm embrace at the final whistle. Sánchez has been linked with a move to City during his contract stand-off with Arsenal, but Guardiola denied a recent report in South America that he had phoned the Chile forward to convince him to join City.
Early exits not well received
Guardiola expressed his delight that the majority of the Manchester City fans among the 54,409 crowd at the Etihad Stadium stayed until the end of the match to cheer their team on. The City head coach was unhappy to see supporters streaming out of the stadium before full-time on Wednesday, so he was pleased they stayed yesterday. “I am so happy for the fans, they stayed until the 94th minute today,” he said. “Normally in the last [few] games they disappear with ten minutes left. Today they were with us.”
