Pep Guardiola admits his Man City side “could not handle” Bournemouth as they lost their first Premier League game of the season.
Guardiola’s City, who have won four consecutive Premier League titles, were well beaten at the Vitality Stadium this afternoon, with goals from Antoine Semenyo and Evanilson before Josko Gvardiol pulled one back late on.
Guardiola admitted that his City team were overwhelmed by the Cherries.
He said: “We struggled to make our build up, but especially for the rhythm they put into the game, for many reasons theirs was higher than ours and we could not handle it.
“We could not match up the intensity. On the situation with long balls, we could not win it, you have to play deeper.
“In the past we were able to handle these types of situations, but we could not handle it today. Sometimes opponents are better and you have to accept it.”
He added that injuries are not helping City’s case. City have now lost consecutive matches after being dumped out of the Carabao Cup by Tottenham in midweek.
“We have some players with rhythm and other players with a lack of rhythm, because they cannot train, they are injured, but we knew it.
“Today we need the next game. This is the position that we have. We try to disperse the minutes to prevent [injuries], but they were another pace today. We could not handle it.”
Guardiola continued, admitting that he was not surprised by Bournemouth’s setup, saying the match was quite similar to last year’s tie, which the Blues won 1-4.
“It happened last season, we were so tight as well and struggled a lot. It was difficult and today was the same, but we had our moments. At the end we had our chances to score but didn’t.”