Pep Guardiola has apologised to one of his Manchester City stars – insisting he has been “unfair”. The City boss has recently made changes to his starting lineup that have left Jeremy Doku on the outside looking in.
The Belgian international has been relegated to substitute appearances by Guardiola in the last three matches, with his sole start in five coming during the triumph over Leicester. But at Everton on Saturday Doku came off the bench to change the game for City.
Doku entered the fray when the scoreline was deadlocked at 0-0, playing a pivotal role in propelling his team to a 2-0 victory.
Since the March international break, Guardiola has opted for a formation that places greater emphasis on defensive strength and midfielders skilled at retaining possession and executing a relentless sequence of short passes, allowing City to dominate games.
This shift has negatively impacted the roles of both Doku and Savinho in his starting lineup.
Guardiola acknowledged that the duo couldn’t do much about the situation, although he mentioned he was particularly struck by Doku’s performance off the bench at Goodison, more so than in the previous match at Old Trafford.
“I’ve been so unfair with him in the last games, because I remember the games against Spurs away and Brighton, for example,” Guardiola admitted. “Without him it would not be possible, but the only reason that they have not played lately is because we didn’t attack in the last games, with wingers – we were more full-backs wide, and more players in the middle like Bournemouth.
“But it’s only my reason. I feel sorry for him and for other ones.
“But today [Saturday] the impact has been much, much better than Old Trafford. Old Trafford was not good, and here the impact was, you know, how the ball dropped the team, and his threat, arriving to the byline.
“Jeremy in the final third is unstoppable, he’s an incredible, incredible football player, and I’m really pleased that today he played really good.”
Join our new WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
Sky has slashed the price of its Essential TV and Sky Sports bundle in an unbeatable new deal that saves £192 and includes 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more.
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
