Pep Guardiola discusses the confidential Phil Foden conversation that fuelled Man City’s stellar run

Manchester City defeated Newcastle in the Premier League at the Etihad Stadium due to goals from Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva.

Phil Foden makes it 1-0 to Manchester City against Newcastle (Image: Getty)

Pep Guardiola praised Phil Foden’s aggression and opened up on a private chat he had with the youngster after he helped Manchester City beat Newcastle in the Premier League.

City welcomed an out-of-sorts Newcastle side still reeling from their Carabao Cup defeat last week, but were still the Premier League’s best defence and had caused City plenty of problems in the reverse fixture at the start of the season.

However, City put in a professional performance and scored at the right times through Foden and Bernardo Silva to record an important victory and keep Arsenal on their toes in the title race. Foden’s goal made it four goals in his last three appearances, and the winger is close to being back to his best for City.

After starring at Bristol City in the week, Foden admitted his spell on the sidelines and out of the team recently was the hardest part of his career to date, but Guardiola said he told Foden to keep his head up and learn to expect such difficult spells.

“Phil has the special ability to have the ball, where is the goal, and go there to attack with the ball, without the ball,” Guardiola said.

Guardiola Reveals Why Phil Foden Struggled This Season

“But when I spoke with Phil during the year when the moments he had the ball he passed back, you feel you don’t have the confidence to do it and it is normal. [I said] ‘What happens to you Phil it’s absolutely what should happen.’ He arrives 17 years old training with us, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes here, the national team, World Cup, European Cup, winning titles and every year he was a little bit better than the year before.

“Then arrives a moment you go down. Okay accept it, the struggle with his ankle, accept it. They are the most important things. Don’t blame the other ones, the opponent or the manager or the club or the mates. Accept I can do better and come back to the principles. Step by step they will be back and now scoring goals.

“In that moment Riyad in the last two months had been one of the most important players up front, he won the game against Spurs. Every action of him, create actions for the opponents, for Erling, for Kevin for Gundo for everyone. What happened with Phil is completely normal. Accept it. I said: ‘The bad moments, this too shall pass.’ Always like this, in 90 minutes, the bad moments this too shall pass, always will come. Come back to the game and be ready in that moment to do it.”

Regarding Foden’s contribution against Newcastle, Guardiola was impressed with Foden’s aggression in taking on four players to score via a deflection.

Phil Foden is back in form with 4 Goals in the last 3 Man City games

“After we get the goal, a brilliant action from Phil, a lucky with the deflection but was aggressive from Phil,” he said. “We messed that a little this season. It doesn’t matter what happens, ‘I go against you’. When that happens, always a deflection comes for your side. The second half we start well, they have the momentum and break the game up and downs.

“The game is so anxious so that is why we decide to put Bernardo to make our possessions longer. We needed to keep the ball, his intuition to make our high press and take the balls in the middle and go down between the legs. He has this incredible ability. It was an incredibly good result for us.”

source: www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk