Guardiola praise for much-changed line-up | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola says he was delighted with the players that came in against Brentford.

The boss made seven changes from the weekend win over Crystal Palace, but the Blues still saw off a strong Brentford side 2-0 with goals from Rayan Cherki and Savinho.

And the young Brazilian says Pep, can become a world class talent with hard work and the right decision-making.

“What I like from Savinho is always he is digging, go go go all the time,” said Guardiola.

“The final decision can be better, of course, but always I reward this work ethic and especially because he goes and he goes all the time.

“Like Jeremy when he has the ball he goes and goes. Last season he played a lot of minutes with us.

“Sometimes we don’t play with a proper wingers. We play slightly differently in the last seasons, maybe play less. But we trust him a lot, he’s young.

“He can play right and left side, both sides. He’s a player that is so aggressive. And in time we improve the final decision and will become a top, top class player.”

The boss also had praise for Rayan Cherki’s superb first-half goal, with the French playmaker arrowing a shot into the top corner from 20 yards as he gave another thrilling performance.

“He made a fantastic goal,” smiled Pep.

“A blind guy, blind woman can realise, you don’t have to be a journalist or a manager to realise that was a fantastic goal.

“And so many times with Phil ,these types of goals we had before. So happy that it opened the game.”

James Trafford gave another assured display in goal, and Pep says he has a vital role to play in the coming weeks and months.

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“[James ]is a keeper,” he said. “There can only be one or one. He cannot play left-back. In that moment if you have a keeper.

“Gigio is playing in that position, but he’s a top keeper there is no doubt about that.

“I’m a guy who wants to give opportunities to everyone. When we played Leverkusen. Look what happened.

“So I put him, new 10 players because I rely on him. That’s why today I change with Rico, Khusa, Nathan, Divin.

“ These players who didn’t play much played really, really well. We struggled to be more aggressive in our pressing; it was not top.

“We didn’t bring as many players back to then be in a position to move forward, that’s why we struggled.

“We have a good result. We struggle the first 10/15 minutes, but after that with actions in behind with Oscar and Savinho we took the game.

“And I’m really pleased with the impact from the guys who came from the bench because in the second half Rayan Cherki, the job should be defensively but didn’t have the energy to do it.

“That’s why we need Josko, Matheus and Bernardo to help us a lot to increase our rhythm.

“Of course I didn’t want to play Nico or O’Reilly who is 90 minutes again. They play a lot of minutes, and we have a massively important game against West Ham.

“Like Phil, I didn’t want to play the minutes that he played but the injury to Oscar happened.

“But yeah everyone who came from the bench did really good ,so we are in a semi-final again so really pleased.”

Finally, when asked about Oscar Bobb’s injury, Pep added:  “After 10/15 minutes he complained about a muscular injury.

“Apparently it’s a muscular injury in the hamstring. Hopefully he will come back soon.”