Pep Guardiola on the match with Borussia Dortmund: We played in the wrong gear today

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In a tough match against Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City managed to win 2-1. The winning goal for City was scored by Erling Haaland, a footballer who was previously a member of the team from Westfalen. Pep Guardiola had an interesting reaction after the final whistle when he approached the referee complaining.

He received a yellow card for that, but after that passions subsided and they had a calm conversation. "I deserved it,” said Guardiola. “I apologise to him." Despite the victory, Pep Guardiola was not satisfied with his team's performance.

Things changed with the entry of other players, who brought additional aggressiveness to the team. "We are used to doing it lately," he said, as quoted by eurosport.com "I don’t like it."

Pep Guardiola on John Stones

The Spanish expert especially praised the great goal of John Stones, which somewhat reminded fans of that important goal of Vincent Kompany a few years ago.

"We played in the wrong gear today. No aggression. We were passive. The moment we changed rhythm with Phil, Bernardo [Silva] and Julian [Alvarez], we changed our pace and scored two excellent goals.
I am pretty sure the way were playing in the first-half John [Stones] wouldn't have had the courage to try it [his shot but we had the rhythm and momentum and we said, ‘OK it’s going to happen’.

It was exceptional. I am so happy for him." Pep knew how dangerous Dortmund was, and he could have expected that it would not be easy. But City still showed its quality and its goal will remain the same. "They are an exceptional team.

We knew it. We weren’t good enough today. At the same time it’s always good to have that resilience, ‘let’s go, let's go, let's go’. Having Julian and Erling in the box, having that alternative, it works."