Pep Guardiola labels his tactics 'horrible' following Man City's win over Arsenal

Pep Guardiola has called his first half tactics in the Premier League win over Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium ‘horrible’.

City went into half-time drawing 1-1 but were largely outplayed in the first half due to Arsenal’s ability to exploit space left out wide by Guardiola’s rather odd 3-2-4-1 set-up.

Speaking after the game to Prime Video, Guardiola admitted that he got his tactics wrong in the first half but adjusted accordingly in the second to turn the game in City’s favour.

“In the first half they were much better than us, in the second half we were much, much better. At half-time we said that we were not playing, we were just defending because they were so good, and we should be more active. The second half was then excellent,” he explained.

When asked about what frustrated him about the first half performance, Guardiola replied: “My tactics. I decided to try something new and it was horrible. We let them dictate the build up and our shape let them play, and when you let them play with Jorginho and [Granit] Xhaka then they were able to find players in behind – especially [Martin] Odegaard and the runners outside.

“So at half-time we adjusted a little bit, Ruben [Dias] was really good at being closing down Odegaard more aggressively and we controlled more of the ball and played more.

“Erling [Haaland] helped us a lot because we had to play more long balls and he was able to use his power to keep the ball.

“We are built as a team to go as a crazy team. When you wait, float a little bit, the opponent. That’s not who we are. In the second half we were more aggressive, winning duels. When that happens, we’re a better team.”

Thanks to their impressive second half performance, City are now top of the Premier League table – ahead of Arsenal on goal difference.