Pep Guardiola sends false-nine message to Hugo Viana amid Antoine Semenyo pursuit | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has insisted that he believes five names can operate in a false-nine role for his side moving forward.

City are mulling over the acquisition of Bournemouth and Ghana forward Antoine Semenyo in January, with the 25-year-old available for £65 million amid Pep Guardiola’s admissions over his side’s over-reliance on Erling Haaland to score regularly.

The Blues have struggled to produce goals from out wide this term and with the exception of Jeremy Doku – who has been in outstanding form in recent months but is sidelined until the New Year – the likes of Savinho and Omar Marmoush – who is away at the Africa Cup of Nations – have failed to meet expectations in front of goal.

Guardiola’s side are two points adrift of Premier League leaders Arsenal ahead of Saturday’s visit from West Ham and a win over the Hammers will take Manchester City to the top of the table – ahead of Arsenal’s eye-catching test against Everton at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on Sunday evening.

City arguably need greater depth in attack to sustain their title challenge and the prospect of an injury to Haaland as the campaign progresses would have crossed the mind of the club’s director of football, Hugo Viana, who revamped Guardiola’s squad in the summer and is prepared the back the Catalan in the January market.

Guardiola has historically been averse to making too many amendments to his ranks mid-season but the 54-year-old will know that there are loopholes to plug in Manchester City’s frontline amid a finely-contested title race with a formidable Arsenal side.

Speaking to reporters after Manchester City’s 2-0 win in the Carabao Cup quarter-final on Wednesday night, Guardiola was quizzed on deploying a false-nine system to rest Haaland at later stages of the campaign.

“If Omar (Marmoush) was here, we would not have played in that way,” Guardiola said. “It’s just stay there, drop, and play. This is the false-nine. And (Rayan) Cherki can do it, Phil (Foden) can do it, Bernardo (Silva) can do it, Divine (Mukasa) can do it, Tijjani (Reijnders) can do it.”

On the subject of second-half changes, the Catalan coach added: “I’m really pleased for the impact from the guys who came from the bench, because in the second-half, Rayan Cherki didn’t do the job he should defensively – he had no energy, Savinho neither.

“That’s why the impact from Josko (Gvardiol), Matheus (Nunes), especially Bernardo (Silva) helped a lot to increase rhythm! I didn’t want to play Nico Gonzalez, Nico O’Reilly 90 minutes again – they’ve played a lot and we have Saturday – a massively important game against West Ham.

“Same like Phil (Foden) – I didn’t want him to play the minutes he played but the injury from Oscar (Bobb) happened. But everyone that came from the bench was really, really good!”

Manchester United are threatening to hijack Manchester City’s pursuit of Semenyo – who has other suitors in England – and Guardiola could be ready to deploy his famous false-nine system when it is not feasible to play Haaland, should the Catalan decide against pushing for a January swoop for the Bournemouth forward.