“It’s also an art to lose such games” – Man City’s Guardiola panned, ‘doesn’t have confidence in his players’

Didier Hamann has hit out at Manchester City and Pep Guardiola, labelling their football ‘sterile’ and the Catalan coach’s history a ‘myth’.

Manchester City are spending today licking their wound after another high profile defeat in the Champions League last night.

They were beaten 3-1 at the Bernabeu by Real Madrid, with a stunning late comeback from the Spanish side, ensuring City would not be making it to a second consecutive final.

The defeat was another disappointing one at this stage for Guardiola and City, who were in complete command of the tie before Rodrygo scored in the 90^th and 91^st minute to level the scores, and Karim Benzema converted a penalty in the 95^th minute.

Indeed, the result followed a disappointing pattern for Manchester City in the Champions League, with them yet to win the competition despite spending vast sums to do so.

The blame has been firmly laid at Guardiola’s feet, with several strange decisions over the years having cost his side, including in the final against Chelsea last year.

Hamann is one of those who is less than impressed and hit out at the City boss today when analysing last night’s defeat.

“The football is a bit sterile. They have a way of playing football,” Sky Sport Austria report him saying.

“With City, it’s always the same football; you also have to be a bit flexible. They had a quarter of an hour with injury time, and you never really felt they were going to score.

“You can’t win games on the tactics board. The players win the games, and you have to trust them. I miss that a bit.

“The Guardiola myth – that he revolutionised football – is nonsense when you see the teams he had. He spent vast amounts of money in ten years with Bayern Munich and City, and he was in the final once with those teams – and he lost that.

“You have to look at what material he works with. Today is not the first time his team has been a step short – for whatever reason – where they were clearly the better team over two games.

“It is also an art to lose such games, and he manages to do that again and again. For me, this is due to the fact that he doesn’t have the confidence in his players. I feel that his teams have not achieved what they should have achieved in the last few years.”