Guardiola has reservations about Hart’s ability to play in the type of system that he will be implementing at Manchester City – i.e. with the ball at his feet regularly, and in that regard, Bravo or Ter Stegen are the more preferable options.
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Asked how England global Hart, 29, took the news of his omission, Guardiola said: “He reacted well”. Yaya trained really good, Samir arrived a little bit overweight but in the last one or two weeks he has been training fantastic. He has to learn the capabilities of these players and some of them will be asked to do specific jobs that they are not used to in training games and that’s fine.
“This is all good for team spirit”. It’s not about tactics. “It’s not about tactics, it’s not about anything, and I decided today for this line-up”.
Jason Denayer, the Belgian centre-half, is also absent from the group that travelled to the Romanian capital amid reports of a possible move away from the club, though young players Angus Gunn, Tosin Adarabioyo and Angel Tasende have made the trip. In Barcelona, in (Bayern) Munich, it was hard to repeat a line-up.
“I am a guy who takes decisions”. I’m not afraid about that. “That is how I would like to feel”.
“They have to convince me on the pitch – it’s the only way”.
Toure and Guardiola had a troublesome relationship during their time together at FC Barcelona, but the new City boss has insisted he does not have any personal issues with the player.
Paddy McNair, who recently signed for Sunderland, inadvertently headed into his own net in the 87th minute to give City victory.
City went ahead after four minutes through Sergio Aguero’s penalty, but it failed to capitalise on its dominance of possession before Jermain Defoe netted an equaliser 19 minutes from time.
Meanwhile, the Spaniard’s counterpart at Steaua, Laurentiu Reghecampf, is confident his side can dispatch Manchester City and “best in the world” Pep Guardiola in their play-off tie. “We are going to try to do that”.
“And I just realised in the last day before that I was going to start it”.
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Barcelona are in talks with Valencia over signing Diego Alves as Bravo’s replacement, despite manager Luis Enrique being non-committal over Bravo’s future on Tuesday. Everyone is starting to understand it but you see sometimes that one is thinking, ‘Where should I run?’?It’s good. We’ve told him that on September 1, we’ll look to do a contract if that was what was said. “So we’ve not hidden everything”.
