Pep Guardiola said he was pleased with how his Manchester City stars performed in the Community Shield despite losing to Liverpool.
The Spaniard insisted that Premier League champions must up their tempo after they were beaten 3-1 by Jurgen Klopp’s Reds at the King Power Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Liverpool started the match well and eventually got their reward through Trent Alexander-Arnold as the right-back’s superb strike glanced over Nathan Ake’s head into the net.
New signing Julian Alvarez came off the bench in the second half to get City back into the game, but, Mohamed Salah scored a penalty eight minutes from time before Darwin Nunez’s close-range header handed Liverpool their first Community Shield victory since 2006.
After the clash, Guardiola told ITV: "Congratulations to Liverpool. In the first 15-20 minutes they were better with their pace. And then after we got our game and the last 20-25 minutes were quite similar. We started the second half really well, after the goal our game was there and we were really good and confident against this team.
"Even in the first half we created enough chances to do it and after one action was clear, then you lose the ball and they make the transition and the penalty, and after it was more difficult.
"We have [only] two weeks and a little bit since we started so we cannot expect [too much] but in general they gave everything. I said to the players, how proud I was that they gave everything.
"We have to improve and the timing is not much what we have to do, especially for the fact that we need a long week of training games to get our tempo and we will do it."
Comments