A sanguine Pep Guardiola seemed reasonably content to settle for a point at Newcastle as his Manchester City side were held to a second Premier League draw in the space of seven days.
Unlike last Sunday’s acrimonious match with Arsenal, Saturday’s meeting proved a much more cordial affair. Guardiola’s talk of war with Mikel Arteta was replaced with warm words and a lingering embrace for his Newcastle counterpart, Eddie Howe, as both managers agreed 1-1 represented a fair result.
“I said to him [Howe] I admire him and the way he approaches the game,” said Guardiola. “Newcastle press high and are so hard to play against. They have a lot of legs. When you are a manager you are always polite to an opponent who is trying to do the right things.”
If that represented a not so subtle message to Arteta, Guardiola’s respect for Newcastle appeared genuine. “It’s always difficult to play here because of their physicality,” he said Guardiola, whose side took a first-half lead through Josko Gvardiol before a second-half penalty from the excellent Anthony Gordon secured a point.
“Newcastle are impossible to contain over a whole 90 minutes. At 1-0 we made some bad decisions and did not make it 2-0. We would like to have won but we take the point.”
City’s manager is adapting to life without influential midfielder Rodri who will miss the rest of the season with an anterior cruciate ligament rupture. “I have to find a solution but, in midfield we were strong today. Kova [Mateo Kovacic], Rico [Lewis] and Bernardo [Silva] did well. The issue today was balls in behind.”
Guardiola could have done without Erling Haaland having been caught on the achilles by Dan Burn’s studs in the first half and acknowledged the Norway striker is being assessed. “Haaland has some knocks,” he said. “We shall have to see how he is.”
Howe is normally reserved to the point of coolness with rival managers but seems rather bowled over by Guardiola. “I really admire Pep,” he said. “I just think he’s very good for the English game. He’s an innovator. It’s so good for us all to go up against him and today was a really good game, really interesting tactically.
“It was our best display of the season and probably the most competitive we’ve been against Manchester City since I’ve been here.
“Manchester City are a very difficult team to press but we were committed and brave. On another day we could have won. I do think we’re a difficult team to contain.”
Howe had called for improved individual performances after last Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Fulham and he received the desired response. With Alexander Isak sidelined by a broken toe Gordon deputised at centre-forward, converting an equalising penalty. “Anthony was really, really impressive,” said Howe. “He’s getting back to his very best in terms of fitness levels.”
