Southampton: Guardiola makes huge claim about Saints showing vs City

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has claimed that Southampton’s 20-minute spell of control  against his side on Wednesday evening was the best performance by an opposing team at the Etihad Stadium this season.

Ralph Hasenhuttl’s Saints took a brave approach to the league leaders and were able to enjoy a large amount of possession whilst forging some dangerous looking attacks in the early stages. However, poor decision-making and defensive lapses eventually proved costly and led to a 5-2 defeat.

Speaking to the media post-match (via Hampshire Live), Guardiola said:

"“The first 20 to 25 minutes, they were the best team we’ve faced here. I have only respect and admiration for Ralph’s team.“We suffered a lot to control them. We could not do good build-up because we could not contact with the holding midfielders. They were brilliant and the game was won with the quality of the players we have.”"

Southampton still have a way to go despite positives

In the first-half of the game, TV cameras panned to the technical areas where Guardiola and Hasenhuttl stood next to each other. Both were deep in conversation, with the Spaniard clearly making his point to his Austrian counterpart.

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Just by watching, you could tell that both were enjoying the match. In a league where Manchester City face little in terms of competition at times, Saints were taking the game to them and challenging them to overcome a spell of pressure.

It was pressing football against a ruthlessly-efficient possession based style and gave Hasenhuttl and his side a chance to show what they can do. For the first 40 minutes, there was a strong possibility that they might be able to take a result back to the South Coast.

There was a lesson to be eventually learnt though – you have to keep near perfect levels of performance up for the whole game and hope City have an off day to get something from them.

In the 40th minute, Che Adams inexcusably gave the ball to Riyad Mahrez in an ideal position for him to them take it on and score in brutal fashion. All five of City’s goals saw them taking advantage of rebounds not cleared by Saints or dodgy play near the goal – that’s what a top team with some of the world’s best players does.

Positives can be taken and one of the world’s best coaches was complimentary, but ultimately Saints’ good play was clouded by mistakes that show just how far they still need to go to consistently battle for those European places next season.