Guardiola: Salah Has Been a Nightmare for Opponents Over the Years—We Had Three or Four Players Doubling Up on Him

In the blockbuster Round 11 Premier League match, Manchester City defeated Liverpool 3-0 at home. This also marked Pep Guardiola’s 1,000th milestone game as a manager. After the game, Guardiola accepted media interviews.

On the 3-0 home win over Liverpool

Guardiola said: “I want to thank the players for this gift. Liverpool is one of the most important opponents I have faced in my 10 years of coaching. It’s great to see players like Andrew Robertson and Mohamed Salah competing at the highest level for so many years, and I hope there will be more such duels.”

“We pressed high and regained possession as soon as possible. I love seeing the team have the ability to attack on the basis of short passes. Both offense and defense were excellent in the first half. At halftime, we talked about duels—everyone’s mindset was that we had to win them. We emphasized this repeatedly over the past few days. But we lost some duels early in the second half, making things harder for the midfielders. However, the defense and Nico González performed exceptionally well.”

“This game makes me feel the team is back in many aspects. Although I didn’t like the second-half performance—it was far from as good as the first—we need to keep growing. This victory is crucial, and we are now second in the standings.”

Guardiola’s current assistant coach is former Liverpool assistant Pep Lijnders. He specifically praised the performances of Jeremy Doku and left-back Nico O’Reilly, who faced Salah directly in this match.

Guardiola said: “Salah has been a nightmare for opponents over the years, and Nico told me he had to be aggressive against him. It also helped that whenever Salah got the ball, we had three or four players doubling up on him. There’s no better test for a full-back than facing Salah. Our defensive performance was very good, especially in the first half.”

“I was also impressed by right-back James Bradley. Lijnders told me he can do almost anything. I know how well he played against Vinícius Júnior in the game against Real Madrid. Doku was equally brilliant—he was very active and strong both on and off the ball. He had an extremely excellent game.”