Manchester City‘s injury crisis proved costly as the champions saw a 32-game unbeaten Premier League run come to a surprising end with a 2-1 loss at Bournemouth on Saturday but manager Pep Guardiola preferred not to use injuries as an excuse.
The defeat dropped City to second spot, two points behind Liverpool who recovered to beat Brighton & Hove Albion 2-1.
“I don’t know what would have happened. I would like to tell you if these players [weren’t injured], we would have won, but nobody knows,” Guardiola told reporters. “The guys give everything, but not enough to compete against that team in that moment.”
City’s loss came on the heels of a midweek defeat at Tottenham Hotspur in the League Cup fourth round.
And Guardiola said his team paid the price for a lack of intensity as Bournemouth won through goals from Antoine Semenyo and Evanilson
“We couldn’t match up to the intensity,” he said. “All the situations with the long balls, we couldn’t win it.
“And when you don’t win these types of balls to Semenyo and others, our central defenders and strikers have to defend deeper.
“We have players with rhythm and the other players have a lack of rhythm because we could not train due to injuries. But we knew it.”
On Friday Guardiola said he had urged his stars to play through pain “like Rafael Nadal” and feared he might have only 11 senior players fit to feature in the Bournemouth game.
City were already missing Jack Grealish, Rodri and Oscar Bobb and in his pre-game interview Guardiola said Rúben Dias and John Stones were also “ruled out for a little bit of long time.”
Captain Kyle Walker was one of several players who had not been expected to feature on Saturday but started, while Kevin De Bruyne was back on the bench after a lengthy injury layoff.
“Kyle in 16 days didn’t train one session with us, made an incredible effort,” Guardiola said, adding that several other players had “niggles.”
“[But] it’s not just about that,” the City boss added. “They [Bournemouth] were difficult to play in the first half, the second half we were much better.”
Walker said if City had been fortunate enough to have more healthy bodies, several ailing players might have been rested.
“Probably ideally, but we’re not in that position,” he said. “We don’t use that as an excuse, you have to give full credit to Bournemouth.”
City have little time to recover as they head to Lisbon to play Sporting in the Champions League on Tuesday.
“It’s the schedule that we’ve been dealt, no excuses,” Walker added.
Bournemouth’s victory was their first over City in the south-coast club’s history and had Cherries fans at the Vitality Stadium cheekily chanting: “Can we play you every week?”
“I’m very pleased, one thing is to beat City but another is to play better,” Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola said. “We played with no fear, tried to press when we could and defend when we had to.
“You know you have to be at your best level [to beat a top team] and wait for them to not have their best day.”
Information from Reuters contributed to this report.