Pep Guardiola has defended his determination to start out Kyle Walker in opposition to Bournemouth after the Manchester Metropolis star educated for simply ‘six minutes’ previous to the match.
Metropolis’s unbeaten begin to the Premier League season got here to an finish on Saturday as they shockingly misplaced 2-1 on the south coast.
Antoine Semenyo and Evanlison put the house facet into dreamland and although Josko Gvardiol pulled a purpose again, the Cherries survived a late onslaught to file their first ever win in opposition to the Residents.
The end result, mixed with Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Brighton, sees Metropolis knocked off prime spot within the Premier League desk.
Guardiola’s facet have been scuffling with harm and health problems with late, with the likes of Jack Grealish, Ruben Dias and John Stones lacking the journey to the Vitality Stadium.
One participant who did play the complete 90 minutes was Walker, surprisingly so on condition that only a few days in the past Guardiola mentioned the right-back had ‘no likelihood to play the subsequent video games’ after lacking the previous couple of matches.
The England worldwide put in a woeful efficiency and was clearly not prepared to start out, one thing his supervisor confirmed post-match, revealing he hadn’t educated for practically three weeks previous to the Bournemouth loss.
‘Kyle, his final recreation was with the nationwide staff to succeed in 100 video games and since then couldn’t practice one session,’ Guardiola advised reporters post-match.
’19 days he didn’t practice with us till yesterday. Yesterday he did six minutes. It’s what it’s. Settle for it.’
Guardiola additionally confirmed that fellow defenders Manuel Akanji and Nathan Ake had been additionally taking part in via the ache barrier, bemoaning his facet’s harm issues as a key issue within the defeat.
Walker nevertheless mentioned they’d: ‘Not use that as an excuse. We’ve bought gamers on the bench and gamers that began as we speak that felt there have been match to start out.
‘Now we have to present full credit score to Bournemouth and transfer on, transfer onto the subsequent one. To return right here and never get the win is all the time disappointing.
‘Typically it’s important to play the sport with emotion. Typically, once we’ve bought the accidents we’ve bought, and the lads are drained, and so they [Bournemouth] have had six days to arrange for this recreation and every part like that, typically you have to play together with your coronary heart.
‘I felt within the final ten minutes, we got here again into it, however to go 2-0 down, it’s all the time going to be an uphill battle.’
Following their Carabao Cup exit midweek, Metropolis will now be aiming to keep away from a 3rd consecutive defeat once they journey to Sporting Lisbon within the Champions League of their subsequent recreation.
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