Pep and his men lose for the first time this season.
Manchester City came crashing down to reality. City’s return to action after the international break ended in bitter disappointment as Pep Guardiola’s squad suffered their first defeat of the season.
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| Photo by Paul Harding/Getty Images |
Teemu Pukki early after the restart, increased the odds with a third goal.
After continuous City pressure, Rodrigo fired home a wonderful low shot to record his first goal for the Club with two minutes left but despite frantic late pressure, Guardiola’s side couldn’t find an equalizer.
Reactions:
Pep Guardiola's Reaction
“Congratulations to Norwich. The first goal was from a set-piece and the second on the counter so credit to them. It is what it is. We have to learn from this and carry on.”
”Our passing was not bad. We created chances but we could not score them today. They are a really good team with good players with quality, we saw that in the Championship last year, they were clinical today.”
“We did not have urgency in the final third that we normally have. In football you can’t always avoid mistakes. I don’t know how many shots we had or how many they had, but football is about goals and about what you do in the boxes.”
“People cannot expect we will win every game or get to 100 points every season,”
“Sometimes games like this happen – we had our chances to score but didn’t, so congratulations to Norwich.
“It is football – we had many opportunities today, they had three or four and scored three goals. The first one was a set-piece we didn’t defend, the second we were caught on the counter-attack and the third came from a mistake, but we know what we are as a team, we know what we have done and we know what we are going to do.
“I love my players and it’s a pleasure to be with them.
“They didn’t create so many chances, but they got three goals – we played Bournemouth and they had more chances than Norwich did today, but we won that game – football can sometimes do this.
“We’ve defended set-pieces really well in the past and in four years, our standard has been so high, so it is not a weakness.
“Even at 2-0, we knew we were still in it because we can create a lot of chances in a short space of time, but the third goal hurt us because we had started well and we were there, but in the end it didn’t happen. In football you can’t always avoid mistakes.
“They are a really good team with good players who have quality, we saw that in the Championship last year, they were clinical today.
”We did not have urgency in the final third that we normally have.
“Even at 3-2 we had chances to make it 3-3 – this team never gives up and that’s why we have done what we have done.
“John and Nico have played together many times and been a huge part of what we have done, but Kompany is now in Belgium, Laporte is injured and these are the defenders we have at this moment.
“Yes, we have Ferna and some younger players, but it is not a worry.
“So, we go away, we improve from this and we move on and get better.”
Rodri's Reaction
“The good thing about today is we tried all the time,” he said.
“We didn’t do our best match. We lose because of our mistakes.
“We must remain calm.” “Pep told us it was going to be very, very tough and we saw it on the pitch,” he said afterwards.
“Of course, congratulations to Norwich, they play really good football, but today we gave them chances. That’s something we have to look at ourselves and solve our mistakes.
“It’s not normal. The three goals are mistakes. But the good thing about the team is we never dropped.
The season is very long,” he added. “You are going to have matches like this at least two or three. It’s normal.
“We are not perfect, and the good thing is we are at the start of the season not the end. That’s the only positive thing we can say.
“We are five points behind the leaders and that’s bad news but are working and we will keep pushing.
“The team is working, we are down now but we have to wake up because we have matches every three days.”
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