Frank Leboeuf has said that he noticed Pep Guardiola do something he doesn’t usually do during Manchester City’s recent 2-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur.
On Tuesday night, the Blues beat the North London club for the first time ever at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the Premier League.
It took the Treble winners 51 minutes to break the deadlock as Erling Haaland got on the end of a low Kevin De Bruyne cross to pass the ball into the Spurs net.
Then in injury time towards the end of the game, the Norwegian scored his 27th goal of the campaign from the penalty spot to help secure the vital victory for City.
With the Manchester club just one win away from winning the Premier League title again, one pundit and former top-flight player shared something he noticed about what the City boss did against Spurs that caught his attention.
Leboeuf says Guardiola did something unusual in Spurs match
Speaking in a recent video shared on the ESPN FC YouTube channel, LeBoeuf said this on the matter.
He said: “At 1-0, I saw Guardiola, for the last 15 minutes, not pushing his players to carry on playing the way they normally play.
“He was more defensive and he was right to do so. He was more conservative and it’s only fair.
“You are one game away [from] winning your fourth title in a row so you have the right to deny a little bit of your philosophy and that was interesting to see maybe because of the tension, maybe because of a more defensive decision.
“Manchester City were more conservative [than] what we usually see.”
City got the job done against Spurs
In the second half, Spurs just edged the possession with 51% in their favour and also had more attempts at goal than City (7 vs 5) in this period of the game.
Bearing in mind how vital this game was for the Manchester club and their title charge, we agree with Leboeuf that it was understandable why Guardiola wanted to be defensive in the latter stages of last night’s game to help them keep their lead and ultimately walk away with all three points.
With the result being the only important thing for City at this stage of the season, we feel that this should take precedence over their style of play, especially when the chance to make history and become the first team to win a fourth Premier League title in a row is on the line.