Pep Guardiola claims that his Manchester City side could not control the whole game against Brighton as they edged past Roberto De Zerbi’s side 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
City responded to the defeat to Arsenal with a hard-fought victory against a Brighton side that Pep labelled as the “best coached team in the world” a few weeks ago.
Man City set a Premier League record of 21 consecutive home wins as Julian Alvarez and Erling Haaland got on the scoresheet. Jeremy Doku was the star man on the day as he gave James Milner a torrid time at left-back, so much so that the 37-year-old was taken off at half-time.
Brighton contested the second half much better and made matters interesting 15 minutes from time when Ansu Fati scored his first goal for the club. Guardiola’s side held on comfortably to secure all three points despite Manuel Akanji’s late second booking for pulling back Fati.
Guardiola has lauded this Brighton team in the past and he was quick to do so again after his side’s victory, explaining how difficult it is to maintain control of the game against such a well-drilled side.
Guardiola said: “We can’t control the game for 95, 96 minutes. No team in the world can do that. I’m surprised we did it for 55, 60 minutes.
“In the first half we had more chances, and were more aggressive, we linked with forwards because they went man-to-man with us and that allowed us to get contact with the wingers, especially on the left side.
“The second half they closed the space more, they were really good and when they had the ball it was almost impossible to take it from them.”
