Guardiola criticised for ‘overthinking things’ against Man Utd

Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards thinks Pep Guardiola was “overthinking little things” during City’s EFL Cup semi-final second leg loss to Manchester United.

Nemanja Matic scored but was later sent off as United claimed a 1-0 win at the Etihad Stadium that was not enough to prevent City prevailing 3-2 on aggregate.

The result ensured City, bidding to win the competition for a third successive year and a fifth time in seven seasons, would face Aston Villa in the final on March 1.

“For me, they had a good 15 minutes and then United worked them out,” Richards told Sky Sports.

“I saw Raheem (Sterling) receiving the ball in his own half. I saw Bernardo (Silva) doing the same on the opposite side. I’m thinking – why not play 4-3-3? It felt like a training game for City at times.

“The game is still 1-0, you’ve got to make changes early. I’m no manager, and I don’t want to go on about Pep’s tactics and style of play, but you’ve got Kyle Walker, who’s arguably one of the best right backs in the league, playing as a centre half.

“You’ve got (Joao) Cancelo playing left back. You’ve got Rodri dropping into centre back and you’ve got this box in midfield where they’ll all doing similar jobs.

“You’ve got Eric Garcia and John Stones on the bench – what does that do for their confidence?

“We’ve seen it time after time, when Pep gets it right, it’s incredible because he and (Jurgen) Klopp are the best managers in the world. But tonight I felt he was overthinking little things he didn’t need to do.”