Pep Guardiola claims Manchester City planned to make Cristiano Ronaldo suffer by starving Manchester United of possession at Old Trafford.
City coasted to victory in the derby as an own goal from Eric Bailly and a strike from close range by Bernardo Silva sealed a 2-0 win for the Premier League side.
The Red devils looks far short of being able to compete with City as they registered only one shot on target, while Ronaldo had the fewest touches out of any player who started the game.
And Guardiola has revealed that City’s game plan was to control the entire match, meaning that United’s attempts to only play on the counter-attack would give limited chances for Ronaldo to be involved.
When asked about United’s approach for their game against City, Guardiola said: ‘Let me be gentle. I can never analyse or judge the opponents and what they have done.
‘The games have been quite similar in previous seasons when they beat us. ‘They wait behind and ambush us on counter attack – they did not control those games.
‘They waited, maybe because they respect us, which is a big compliment for us.
‘But we did a good game. Rodri was excellent as were [Ilkay] Gundogan and Bernardo [Silva], and we wanted the ball.
‘That’s the only way to control the transitions. I know how big talented players like Cristiano are, they suffer when they don’t have the ball. We wanted that.’
