12 hours ago
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Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola knows his team will not be at their freshest when they take on West Ham on Saturday
Pep Guardiola had to haul several players off against Brentford as he tries to pick a winning team for West Ham on Saturday. The Manchester City manager made seven changes from the weekend win over Crystal Palace and then made full use of his five substitutes as he looks to maintain their push in all competition.
Rayan Cherki scored a brilliant goal in the first half to open the scoring but was taken off after an hour after being too tired to do the defensive work that Guardiola demanded, while Phil Foden was brought on unexpectedly early after an injury to Oscar Bobb and was then taken off before the end for debutant Charlie Gray. Nico Gonzalez and Nico O'Reilly were also replaced with 30 minutes left after playing more than anyone else in the last 10 matches.
Having made 10 changes for the dismal defeat to Leverkusen three weeks ago, Guardiola was delighted to see his team beat Brentford and make the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup for the first time since 2021. It took a collective effort though and the manager will need more of that on Saturday for a game where they are playing catch-up.
"We have had a run of a lot of games with Erling and Ruben and the others have to be ready, after we have seven games for Nottingham (Forest) and four or five before Sunderland and then a crazy schedule," he said. "We talk about it a lot these days that everybody has to be connected.
"The guys who were on the bench had to be connected and they proved it. Matheus was so focused and Bernardo as always, so everyone was there, when Josko arrived he was incredibly committed. We need three more days West Ham have had a long week and time to prepare their game, we don’t have much time, just one day - tomorrow is nothing training - we are used to it of course and prepare with our fans to win that important game and then this little break that is longer than usual being up there.
"That is why today we changed Rico, Khusa, Nathan, Divine- these players that didn't play much recently performed really well. First half we struggled to be more a in aggressive in our pressing, it was not top because we didn't bring the position of back four more forward, that is why we struggled.
"We have a good result, we struggled in first 10-15 minutes to take the game but after that the two actions with Savinho and Oscar in behind, I am really pleased with the impact from the guys who came off the bench.
"In the second half, Rayan Cherki didn't do the job he has to do defensively, he didn't have the energy to do it, Savinho neither that is why we needed the impact from Josko, Matheus and Bernardo helped us a lot to increase our rhythm.
"I didn't want to play Nico O'Reilly for another 90 minutes, we have a massively important game v West Ham, Phil I didn't want to play that many minutes but the injury to Oscar happened, everyone came from bench were really good and we are in the semi-final again. Really pleased."
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