{"id":367863,"date":"2025-08-23T18:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T18:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/367863\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T18:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T18:31:10","slug":"guardiola-defends-trafford-selection-after-error-in-manchester-citys-defeat-by-spurs-manchester-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/367863\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardiola defends Trafford selection after error in Manchester City\u2019s defeat by Spurs | Manchester City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pep Guardiola defended selecting James Trafford ahead of Ederson and said Manchester City lost 2-0<\/a> to Tottenham because \u201cwe missed the simple things\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ederson was a substitute at the Etihad Stadium and a sloppy ball from Trafford led to Jo\u00e3o Palhinha scoring Spurs\u2019 second goal at the end of the first half. The 22-year-old goalkeeper, who rejoined City from Burnley<\/a> for \u00a331m this summer, tried to find Nico Gonz\u00e1lez, but passed instead to Pape Matar Sarr, the ball eventually reaching Palhinha.<\/p>\n

Ederson is considering his future at City. While the club do not want the Brazilian to leave, Pep Guardiola was asked if this was a factor in choosing to start Trafford, who played in last Saturday\u2019s 4-0 win at Wolves<\/a>. The manager said: \u201cHe made a good first game and I decided to continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I take decisions in the first part of the season \u2013 for all the players you play one or two [games] \u2013 everyone thinks: \u2018OK, this is the starting lineup.\u2019 It was just today I decided that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brennan Johnson had opened the scoring and while City had chances their performance was disjointed. Guardiola said: \u201cWe missed the simple things. The effort and running is extraordinary and I have no doubts about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe created chances, we created enough. It happened, it\u2019s football. It\u2019s just the second game. The last game versus Wolves everyone said everything was fine, but I said: \u2018It\u2019s just the first game.\u2019 It\u2019s the same now.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have to improve. Step by step until we make it click and have good connections. Now, we have seven days of rest and then it is Brighton.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas Frank was particularly pleased with Palhinha, who is on a season\u2019s loan from Bayern Munich. He referenced how Spurs have missed out on signing Eberechi Eze<\/a> because of the Crystal Palace forward\u2019s preference for Arsenal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is fair to say we got a few questions about the transfer market, why not and what if, but we brought two top players into the club,\u201d the Tottenham manager said. \u201cPalhinha \u2013 wow, sometimes players need confidence and I don\u2019t think he is fully fit yet, but very pleased with his performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frank denied using Eze\u2019s decision as inspiration for the victory. \u201cNever ever use one word about one player not at our club,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Spurs are yet to concede in the league after last Saturday\u2019s 3-0 win against Burnley<\/a>. Frank said: \u201cThe clean sheet makes me very happy, it is a big thing we have been working on. Blocking shots, everything. Last year we had six clean sheets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manuel Akanji, who was left out of the City squad for tactical reasons, is attracting interest from Galatasaray. The price for the 30-year-old defender would be a minimum \u00a315m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pep Guardiola defended selecting James Trafford ahead of Ederson and said Manchester City lost 2-0 to Tottenham because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-367863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115079511087850574","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}