Pep Guardiola shares the plan he made to stop Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka last night

Add as preferred source on Google

Arsenal suffered a 4-1 defeat against Manchester City last night, and Pep Guardiola has revealed how he stopped Bukayo Saka from having a good game.

The Gunners were schooled by the defending Premier League champions. They were no match for City’s quality on the pitch last night and deserved to take nothing from the game.

Saka, who is usually Arsenal‘s biggest threat, was totally controlled on the right flank.

Pep Guardiola says he used Manuel Akanji to stop Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka

Arsenal received a small boost ahead of the game against Manchester City last night when it was confirmed that Nathan Ake was ruled out due to an injury.

Many felt that would act in Bukayo Saka‘s favour, as the Dutchman was the one who stopped the Arsenal number seven from having a good game last time out.

Guardiola had a decision to make. He could’ve gone with Ayemric Laporte or Sergio Gomez or even Rico Lewis there, but the Manchester City boss chose Akanji at left-back instead in order to stop Saka, who he describes as an ‘incredible threat’.

He said in his press conference last night, as relayed on HaytersTV: “I had a lot of doubt in that position because I missed our best player in the build-up (Nathan Ake).

“But after seeing Manu Akanji against Bayern Munich against Koman, Leroy and Musiala and the other ones, and how he won those duels 1v1 was amazing. I thought against Saka and Martinelli it was so important for Kyle and him to win the connection, the runners and be so aggressive with them.

“I thought Manu can do it because he’s so intelligent, so clever. He controlled really well one of the incredible threats all season that Saka is.”

TBR View:

Saka was totally controlled last night.

Even when the Englishman had the opportunity to go 1v1 against Akanji, City doubled up on him, with Rodri coming in to help out or Jack Grealish dropping back.

The same happened on the left side as well. Gabriel Martinelli could not play his usual game against Kyle Walker, and that is the reason why Arsenal couldn’t do anything significant in offensive transition last night.

Pep really is a genius, isn’t he?