Pep Guardiola amazed by 'stupid detail' that ruined Man City season

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola recognised an issue at the club in the winter months but could not solve the problem

Pep Guardiola knew something was wrong at Manchester City this season - when they didn't celebrate goals properly. The manager says it is a 'stupid detail' to notice but believes it says a lot about why the team have fallen from their position as champions.

It has been a difficult and unexpected year for the Blues. Having won the Premier League for the last four seasons, they were flying high and unbeaten at the end of October, only to collapse dramatically when injuries to key players hit with nine defeats in 13 games in an abysmal run that saw just one victory.

Guardiola could not find a solution for a long time, although City head to Wembley in some of their best form of the campaign after five wins and a draw since the March international break. The results have been positive, and the manager has been more pleased by performances that have reminded him of seasons gone by when standards were higher.

The players have noticed a shift in that time that there is more hunger back in the squad. While the injuries meant that Guardiola could do nothing about it, he had noticed the drop in passion earlier in the season.

"We have to do better to create another environment about the team, the spirit, the way we recover," he said. "The celebrations when we score a goal.

"[Bernardo] scored a goal in the first minutes [against Forest in December] and the way we celebrated it… we didn’t celebrate this season when we scored the first goal in October, November, December, January [like in past seasons]. We didn’t celebrate in that way - the body language we didn’t celebrate in that way.

"That stupid detail says a lot about the passion that we had all the time and this season we didn't have it. We had 12, 13 players, every three days.

"We could not recover with the pace and energy it was necessary to have. Now we can compete.

"The players have to feel they're not going to play and they couldn't feel it because we didn't have players, we had six, seven, eight injuries most of the time. There were other ones but that was the biggest issue.

"We could not train. I remember many times we were good for 65 to 70 minutes and after we went down.

"Of course you can make some changes and involve Nico [O'Reilly] or [James McAtee] more and I didn't do that. I reflect on that time.

"But at that time, maybe I didn't realise. We have to recover that spirit that we had during that those nine years - that first season we didn’t win but we had an energy and a new manager. This year we didn't have it."

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