Immediately after Saturday’s strikingly beautiful demolition of Stoke City, which came if you remember a couple of hours after Manchester United’s exercise in cautious negativity at Anfield, Pep Guardiola was asked whether he would always insist on his Manchester City team being committed to entertaining football. Surprising, too, because neither Barcelona nor Bayern Munich, Guardiola’s previous two teams, were rarely anything other than highly watchable. He appeared to be warning people that entertainment was not an objective in itself, merely a by-product of a particular way of playing to win. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Leroy Sané celebrates after scoring one of Manchester City’s goals in a 7-2 win over Stoke. He seems to regard them as a badge of dishonour, whereas in reality the ball you are looking for is the right ball, long, short or medium.

Source: The Guardian October 19, 2017 09:22 UTC