Guardiola Reveals Reasons for Leaving out David Silva against Stoke
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has revealed that David Silva was recently left out of the starting lineup against Stoke City due to concerns about burnout.
City are competing in several competitions including the Champions League and FA Cup. As a result, there is a huge number of games for the blue half of Manchester. Guardiola has always been obsessed about resting players and giving them time to recuperate. It was a feature of his spell at Barcelona. However, rotation has always been seen as a bad tactic in English football. Guardiola’s decision proved to be wrong after City failed to create much opportunities in the 90 minutes against Stoke.
The goalless draw with Mark Hughes’ team leaves City 10 points behind table leaders Chelsea after having played the same number of games. As a result, the club may be starting to think about focusing on the cup competitions rather than the league. City have been able to progress into the semifinals of the FA Cup, while they are on the verge of sealing a position in the Champions League quarter-finals.
Silva has been one of the best players at City since his move from Valencia in 2010. He appears to have put behind his injury problems this season, as he has already played in 34 games – scoring six and creating eight.
“The rotations are good when you are successful.But the competition is a lot of games.In two and a half days we have another one - away because we never play at home.I would like to use more players like Fabian Delph. The last game didn’t play Kevin de Bruyne - he plays now.In three or four days we have to travel to France and then we play Monaco. When you have one game a week, you can play 11 players no problem,” said Guardiola.