Pep Guardiola names player he should have dropped after costly draw at West Ham | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola admitted he should have started Rayan Cherki instead of Antoine Semenyo after Manchester City drew 1-1 at West Ham to give up ground in the title race.

City struggled for cohesion in the first half, as Semenyo and Omar Marmoush started alongside Erling Haaland in attack. Later Cherki came off the bench and made a major impact on the game, along with fellow substitutes Phil Foden, Jeremy Doku and Tijjani Reijnders.

But City couldn’t break through West Ham’s stubborn defence, with Marc Guehi missing a golden chance in added time, and are now nine points behind the league leaders with a game in hand.

Afterwards, Guardiola admitted he got his team selection wrong.

“Bad selection,” the City manager explained. “Now you can criticise me incredibly, for the selection, now I deserve it.

“It’s sometimes for the balance. We learned in the beginning (this season) that when we played Erling with Jeremy [Doku] or Cherki that we are incredibly unbalanced, we do not have the stability that teams in the Premier League have to have.”

Guardiola said his team is still learning new combinations after a season of transition in the squad.

"It’s a team that is growing, I think that from the beginning we’ve grown a lot but still it is not finished business. It is like that sometimes but I will not say that I don’t love playing with Rayan, especially when he came from the bench, always the impact is unbelievable.

“But sometimes he has not the speed, the team is always stable when Semenyo and Nico O’Reilly play in the winger position and go inside, arrive to the box, they are really, really good.

“I’m finding still the best way to have stability and consistency in the team."