Pep Guardiola turned his attention to Arsenal after seeing his Manchester City side lose to Newcastle.
The defending champions have no time to mope after a defeat that looks incredibly damaging to the Premier League title hopes because they must prepare for their next match against Unai Emery‘s top-four challengers.
Before Sunday, the Blues will be back on the training field looking to put right some shortcomings that have crept into their game. While the manager largely wrote off the performance at St James’ Park as an off night, he also claimed to know “exactly the reason why” they had come up short and promised they would analyse their issues.
“We didn’t commit the holding midfielders or attacking midfielders from Newcastle with enough aggression,” he said. “That was the main reason. You pass the ball but with the intention to attack them and to try to make movements inside and outside and be aggressive in those positions, and we didn’t do that.”
When it was suggested that the players may be finding it difficult to hear the manager’s message, he elaborated: “We won eight games in a row and scored 30 goals. Sometimes it happens – Wolves and today, but sometimes it doesn’t happen. It is not just that question but in our buildup sometimes we needed to do that and today it was more difficult to do that.
“It sometimes happens. The fact that it works one or two days, one day it doesn’t work because they are human beings or maybe they are not fresh. I understand that completely. We spoke about what we have to do but because I said we have to do, that doesn’t mean it always happens.