We wanted to play long and strong today and disrupt City
Burnley earned themselves a draw against top of the table Manchester City and it was a game that provided both managers with plenty of positives with visiting boss Pep Guardiola considering his team’s performance as outstanding.
“Playing in the Premier League, especially away, in the last ten minutes with the score at 1-0, anything can happen,” Guardiola said. “But we gave, in general, an outstanding performance. We are happy for the performance.
“We played good. Maybe people don’t realise, but the way we played was outstanding. It was almost perfect the way we played today in the build ups, the defending long balls and second balls, the courage to play, but we missed the chances to score more goals.”
“We will focus on the next one, in football this can happen, in the last ten minutes, we were not able to convert but we will learn from our performance.
“We dropped two points but we came here to play. We made amazing build up, we played inside and outside and here in Burnley it is so complicated but I am delighted at the way we played the game, especially after West Brom.”
Burnley boss Sean Dyche was clearly delighted with his team’s performance and the result but it was the Burnley supporters he referred to first when he spoke after the game. “I’ll start with the fans because I thought they were fantastic today,” he said.
“They know some of the challenges in front of us and that they’ve got a team that will give everything, even on this tough run. They are the top side in the division, but the energy the supporters brought today was absolutely fantastic and that’s something that’s changed over a number of years here. Their confidence allows the players to play and on top of that, the players delivered.”
The two changes he made saw us return to a 4-4-2 system and he explained: “We wanted to play long and strong today and disrupt City, but the quality going into the front wasn’t what we needed in the first half and we didn’t put enough crosses in. We still had a really good chance, but in the second half, after weathering a very good start from them, you could sense us growing into the game.
“Their keeper makes an unbelievable save from Aaron and they went down the other end and missed an unbelievable chance and the energy went even higher in the crowd. It all changed in that couple of minutes. Suddenly the energy in the crowd grew. We started to find our feet and it’s hard for them to constantly have the game in their favour over ninety minutes. We made sure they didn’t and ended up scoring a fantastic goal.”
With Phil Bardsley the latest player to suffer an injury, he added: “The big thing for me is the squad mentality. We are suffering a bit at the moment and there’s that old adage that if you kick one Burnley bloke, the whole town limps.
“There’s a feeling of that because in our group everyone is looking at each other and saying ‘let’s get on with it.’ Nobody gives you a chance in those games other than ourselves and the fans. I’ve marvelled at that mentality for a couple of years now.”
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