De Bruyne Expresses Disappointment after 3-1 Lose
Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne has come out to express his disappointment following their 3-1 lose to French side Lyon, De Bruyne said: “we need to learn” after their third consecutive Champions League quarter-final exit. De Bruyne who scored the only goal for the English side also said: “It’s a different year, same stuff.”
“The first half wasn’t good enough. In the second half we played well and had them under pressure,” he also said: “We were more offensive. Lyon didn’t really create but we need to learn.” De Bruyne added. Manchester City finished second in the Premier League, and only the only trophy they won this season is the EFL Cup.
Moussa Dembele came from the bench to score two late goals as Lyon knock Manchester out with 3-1 margin to proceed to the semi-finals with Bayern Munich. Lyon took the lead from the first half of the game but City came back into the game in the second half through Kevin De Bruyne strike to level the scores.
Things became bad for Pep Guardiola and his troops as substitute Moussa Dembele doubled his side’s scores to put them in front, few minutes before the end of the game he added his second to make it 3-1. Manchester City boss Guardiola has often been accused of overthinking his tactics in big Champions League matches.
This time he played a 3-5-2 formation with wing-backs instead of his usual 4-3-3 as centre-back Eric Garcia replaced attacking midfielder Phil Foden in the team that beat Real Madrid. “In this competition, tactics are not the most important thing,” said Guardiola – who last won the Champions League in 2011 with Barcelona.
“We worked three days on this. We discussed it and reviewed it. The way we played was really good. It was not a problem. I know how it works. I know why we did it. “We will recover and restart and try to do it again. I am not able, with these guys, to break this line at the quarter-final.
“I think after what these guys have done, we deserve to go through but we are not able. Life is how you stand up again and next season we are going to try again.” “It happened many times in this competition but I don’t want to talk about anything now because it will be like we we are finding excuses as a club. It is what it is,” added Guardiola.
England and former Liverpool striker Raheem Sterling missed an empty net from close range that would have made it 2-2 moments before Dembele’s second. Guardiola speaking about it said: “I have not seen him. We will talk in the hotel.” “The players were sad in the locker room. It is part of the game.”
Tweeting after the game, Laporte wrote: “I’m a football player but a man foremost, we all made mistakes in this game, and I also take my responsibility for the bad team performance tonight. But this decision is hard to accept, especially in a crucial qualifier and with the help of VAR.”