Manchester City boss, Pep Guardiola, has gone on record to say he believes Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is on the right track to restore Manchester United to their past glories after United won 1-0 in Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup second leg semi-final but lost on a 3-2 aggregate.
While the win wasn’t sufficient to overturn City’s 3-1 lead from the first leg at Old Trafford, it still means that the United boss meant is the first manager to beat Guardiola’s team twice at the Etihad, nonetheless, with the Norwegian having achieved a 2-1 victory there in the Premier League last month.
Guardiola was generous after the match in expressing his admiration for United’s style of play, saying he thinks the players are beginning to understand what their manager wants from them.
“I like the way they play a lot,” Guardiola told reporters.
“I said when we lost here [in December], they don’t need much. The quality of the players up front is incredible,” the Catalan said.
“When we lost at home against them, I had the feeling they are trying to do what the manager Ole wants and I think it works. Maybe they are not consistent in all the games, maybe at home they are struggling a little bit against teams that defend deep. But I like the way they play, their qualities.”
“Lindelof, I saw it in Benfica, is an incredible player, Maguire is one of the best central defenders in the world. The people up front, they are so fast. Matic and Fred, they’re incredible players. Matic is an outstanding player.”
“I think in time they will come back to what United was for many, many years.”
Commenting on the performance of his own team, Guardiola cautioned that they needed to be more clinical as failing to score early in the game resulted in the second half becoming a bit ragged.
“We were fantastic, we concede the goal from the only time they shot,” said Guardiola.
“We were solid and we create enough chances to score a lot of goals.
“The same at Old Trafford, we created even more chances but didn’t convert; we have to learn from that to be more clinical. Of course, we have to take the chances we have, the clear chances.”
Manchester United will be hosting Manchester City in the Premier League at Old Trafford on March 8.
When asked to comment on the videos circulated on social media during the game showing City fans making plane gestures – in reference to the Munich air disaster – towards the United supporters, who had reportedly ripped out seats and throwing them, he criticised the fans who misbehaved at the Etihad Stadium and even heaped praise on Ed Woodward for his work at Old Trafford.
He was forthright in condemning the actions, and the individuals involved, in the attack on Woodward’s Cheshire mansion on Tuesday night.
“I don’t like it,” Guardiola said. “I don’t like what happened with Ed Woodward at home. You see the squad for United, it’s really good. Honestly, it’s really good. So that is not the way to do that.”
“When you talk about what happened [City fans making plane gestures], I didn’t know it. If it would happen, that is not nice. Absolutely not.”