Pep Guardiola fears and underestimates Liverpool

This week Amazon Prime Video released their much anticipated in-depth documentary series, All or Nothing: Manchester City, which focuses on the 2017-18 Manchester City campaign. The documentary does a great job of giving the viewer a voyeuristic look into the season that saw City win the title by 19 points, but fail in their ultimate goal — winning their first Champion’s League title.

One part of the documentary that is of interest to Liverpool fans is when Pep Guardiola discusses the tactical plan for dealing with Liverpool ahead of the first league of the Champion’s League Quarter Finals at Anfield.

As you can see, Pep and his assistant coaches have a healthy fear of Sadio Mane, Bobby Firmino, and obviously, Mo Salah. But, you can also see that they underestimate the rest of the squad.

We all remember what happened during the first half of that game. Liverpool jump to an early lead against City in the 12th minute, thanks to Salah. Gaurdiola’s assessment that Salah would play a more central role in that match is actually correct, but his team is unable to stop him from scoring.

It’s the second goal that Liverpool score in the first half that show how Pep and his staff potentially underestimated Liverpool’s midfield. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlin is able to get on the ball in the middle of the pitch and drives forward. No Manchester City player steps up to stop him, and the rest is history — he rockets the ball into the bottom corner in the 21st minute.

Hopefully, for the Reds’ sake, Pep continues to discredit Liverpool in future matchups.