Before Man City faced Sporting Lisbon in the 4th round of the Champions League qualifying round, many people believed that Pep Guardiola and his team would have an easy match. But on a day of poor performance, Man Xanh surprisingly lost 1-4. Notably, this was also the last match of coach Ruben Amorim at Sporting, before he moved to lead Man United.
In his post-match press conference, coach Pep Guardiola expressed disappointment. However, he praised the performance of defenders Rico Lewis and Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, according to TNT Sports: “In the first half we did very well. In my opinion, we scored a goal and created many chances.
But on simple passes we sometimes missed. The opponents had pace and they punished us a bit. We should have avoided that after the third or fourth time.
The young guys (Simpson-Pusey) played well in this game. Rico did as well. When you play a lot of games, it's difficult to play with a stable team and defense. We've had that problem all season, that's the truth."
In the match against Sporting Lisbon, Man City continued to be without many important pillars, most notably the duo Ruben Dias and John Stones. While Dias is expected to return by the end of November, Stones' injury will not recover until 2024.
