Pat Nevin has said that Manchester City defender Josko Gvardiol was caused ‘a lot of trouble’ against Aston Villa.
City failed to return to winning ways at Villa Park after drawing three games in a row against Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, and were blown away by Unai Emery’s side.
City, missing Rodri, just couldn’t get near the hosts, who were superior in every department.
It was the kind of performance from Villa that people have associated with City for years.
There were just two shots on target for City and two in total, compared to seven on target and 22 in total for Villa.
One man who will want to forget the game as quickly as possible is Josko Gvardiol, who really struggled…
Pat Nevin says Josko Gvardiol really struggled for Manchester City against Aston Villa
One of Villa’s standout players was Leon Bailey, who gave £130,000-a-week Croatian defender Gvardiol a torrid time down the City left side.
Gvardiol’s form in recent weeks has not bee good – he looked pretty shaky against Chelsea and wasn’t great against Spurs either.
But this might have been his worst outing yet in sky blue. In the eyes of former Chelsea winger Pat Nevin though, he was not really done any favours by Pep Guardiola.
Nevin said on Football Daily: “But that man who scored the winning goal, [Leon] Bailey, well he had a chance early in the game and I said to you, he’s up against a full-back that’s not a full-back, [Josko] Gvardiol.
“Can you remember it was Lionel Messi that was against him and he did the little dummy and the drag back in the World Cup semi-final, that’s not that complicated a dummy that Messi did.
“I’m just thinking that’s a centre-half’s tackle, I’m a big, big fan of Gvardiol but sticking him out at left-back against a player who’s an out-and-out trickster and speed merchant-type winger, it caused him a lot of trouble.”
Gvardiol struggling to adapt
This was a really poor day at the office for Gvardiol, but one has to have a bit of sympathy for him.
He is a young player in his first season in the Premier League and he is still learning to play on that left side.
He is a central defender by trade, so there are bound to be bumps in the road for him while he is playing where he is.
In hindsight, perhaps it was not a good idea for Guardiola to start him there over Nathan Ake, given Gvardiol has been looking shaky and Bailey has been in really good form.
