LEICESTER – Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola shrugged off his team’s woeful defending in a 4-2 defeat at Leicester, insisting that tackling opposing players was not high on his list of priorities.
Premier League champions Leicester claimed victory at the King Power Stadium with Jamie Vardy ending his 16-match club goal drought with a hat-trick.
Leicester were 2-0 up after just five minutes and 3-0 ahead by the interval.
In a snapshot of City’s problems, Vardy completed his hat-trick with 12 minutes left after latching onto John Stones’ poor back-pass.
Guardiola, though, promised only minor tweaks despite statistics revealing his side failed to win a tackle in the opening 35 minutes.
“I am not a coach for the tackles. I don’t train for tackles. What I want is to try to play well and score goals. What are tackles?” said the City boss.
“You have to win the duels, that is true.
“But normally, when you play well, you win tackles but after four minutes, at 2-0, the mind of the players is, ‘What is going on? What happened?’
“It is another aspect of football but in the end we are not going to win or lose because of the tackles.”
City have won just four of their last 15 games in all competitions – having won Guardiola’s first 10 in charge.
