Pep Guardiola labels Chelsea a “fantastic” team after they came from behind three times to rescue a point against his Manchester City side in a pulsating 4-4 draw in the Premier League on Sunday.
Pep Guardiola has labelled Chelsea a “fantastic” team after they came from behind three times to rescue a point against his Manchester City side in a pulsating 4-4 draw in the Premier League on Sunday.
In an action-packed end-to-end contest at Stamford Bridge, Citizens striker Erling Haaland opened the scoring from the penalty spot on the 25-minute mark, before Thiago Silva and ex-City man Raheem Sterling turned the game on its head for the Blues, but Manuel Akanji restored parity for the visitors on the stroke of half time.
Haaland then netted his second as he bundled the ball home just 89 seconds into the second half to put Man City back in front, but his effort was cancelled out in the 67th minute by Nicolas Jackson, before a deflected strike from Rodri nestled into the corner with four minutes of normal time remaining.
However, it was another former City man in Cole Palmer who had the last laugh as he cooly converted from the penalty spot in the fifth minute of stoppage time to force both teams to share the spoils.
The draw represents Man City’s first of the season in the Premier League and Guardiola believes a “fair result” was played out at Stamford Bridge considering the performance of the opposition.
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“It was a good advert and entertaining game for the Premier League and both teams wanted to win,” Guardiola told reporters as quoted by BBC Sport. “I wouldn’t have expected differently. Chelsea have a fantastic team and players and we know they always play good against fantastic side.
“We took the game [to Chelsea] it was difficult to control and they had quality from Cole Palmer and Mykhaylo Mudryk. The players try to dribble and run it was difficult to control the game – they were aggressive.
“We have momentum [during the game], two or three transitions one-on-one which we could not finish, but the game was in the moment at the end.
“A tight game, but a fair result. I congratulate the team, we go into the break and we qualify for the Champions League (last Tuesday) and we come back [after international break] and go.”
Rodri, meanwhile, believes Chelsea deserves “big credit” for forcing Man City to play into their hands, telling Sky Sports: “These type of games, with that rhythm, we knew how tough it is to come here. The team they’ve built.
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“They have great players, they signed massive players. The level of their team has risen. So we knew where we were coming. I don’t think it was one of our best performances today.
“We played how they wanted. They want to play quick transitions, they are a better team in them situations, they have faster players and stronger. We needed to try and play our game, we struggled.
“Big credit to the opponent of course, they have good players and they were at home and they made pressure.”
Rodri added: “I’m thinking we were very close to winning the game. That’s the disappointment about this fact. We have the feeling sometimes when we are not ourselves, that the result we want is to win, it’s important, but we know what we have to do to get it.
“At the same time, we keep pushing. Sometimes football is like this, we have to move forward. We have to correct some mistakes. As a team we support each other and we will move forward. We keep pushing.”
Man City may have missed the chance to move three points clear at the top of the Premier League table, but they still sit one point ahead of both second-placed Liverpool – who Guardiola’s side face after the international break on November 25 – and third-placed Arsenal heading into the international break.
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