Claudio Bravo and Willy Caballero to be kept in the dark before Manchester City's trip to Bournemouth
Pep Guardiola, the City manager, will decide on his starting goalkeeper on the day of his side's trip to the south coast
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Your support makes all the difference.Pep Guardiola will leave it until the last possible moment before telling Claudio Bravo and Willy Caballero which of them will play in goal for Manchester City at Bournemouth on Monday night.
Caballero has played in City’s last three matches, with Bravo losing his place after going through a difficult spell.
The Chile international, who was brought to the club by Guardiola from Barcelona for £15.4m last August to replace Joe Hart as first choice, has not saved any of the last six shots on target he has faced.
It means he has not made a stop of any description for City since the 2-1 win over Burnley on January 2. Guardiola, though, has described Bravo as “a top, top goalkeeper”, while declaring that he has yet to make up his mind whether to restore him to the team at Bournemouth.
“I don’t know,“ he said when asked which of the pair will play from the off on Monday night. ”I will decide the day of the game.”
The City manager wanted Bravo in the first place because he felt the Chilean is better at playing out from the back than England international Hart, who was dropped at the start of the season and then sent out on loan to Torino.
Guardiola’s side have conceded 29 league goals this season, 12 more than leaders Chelsea and 11 more than second-placed Tottenham. However, he believes that Bravo’s style is well-suited to the way he wants City to play.
“My opinion of Claudio remains the same. He is a top player, a top goalkeeper,” Guardiola said. “Football here is different. There are more crosses, more special things to deal with, but of course he is a top, top goalkeeper. The decision I take is based on what I see. That is why I am here.”
City, third in the table going into the weekend, have been top scorers in the Premier League for each of the last three seasons, and could yet win that honour again this time around.
They have 49 goals to their credit, three fewer than joint top-scorers Liverpool and Arsenal, and two short of Chelsea’s total. Guardiola, though, has suggested that catching the tallies of those clubs does not concern him.
“I am not concerned too much about that,” he said. “We are not at the beginning of the season. We are in the last months of the season so I don’t think we are going to achieve.”
City slipped out of the Premier League’s top four after a wobbly spell during December and January, during which they lost four out of nine league matches. Guardiola acknowledged during that run that he might have made mistakes by tinkering too much with the team’s tactical set-up.
A run of three successive wins suggests that difficult spell is over, even though City left it late to beat Swansea 2-1 last Sunday.
“When I see the first half against Swansea, it is what I want,“ he said. ”We monopolised the ball, we arrived near their goal six, seven, eight times, although we did not create too many chances because it is so difficult.
“I think we are more stable, we control more. Every game is completely different. But Bournemouth is a tough, tough game.”
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