Despite picking up three points with a second half comeback, the City boss was not pleased with the performance at the time and gave a powerful postmatch interview, demanding improvement.
Guardiola said his reaction was what he felt after the game but says it’s nothing compared to the positive comments he’s made during his seven years at the Club.
“In my period here, if you can say how many good things I’ve said to them publicly and privately, it’s 1,000 times more than the negative things,” he said ahead of Sunday’s game at the Etihad at 16:30 (UK).
“I’m honest and I felt it so I said it. Maybe because we won, if we lost I wouldn’t have said it. We won and people accepted it and that was my feeling in that moment.
“I said it because I felt it. It’s not copy and paste, it’s now we’re in November or December, I have to say something. I felt it and I said it.”
City fought back from being 2-0 down at half-time to run out winners but Guardiola described it as a “happy flowers” performance after the game.
His call for more desire was heeded with City going on to win the Premier League title and an historic Treble.
But he says his job is to tell the players what is happening on the pitch and address any issues in our play.
“We had the feeling we play good and nice but [there was] nothing inside of us,” he added.
“Our job, all the managers is [to say] what really happened. If you don’t like it then it’s your problem. We have to do it; we have to put them in front of a mirror every single time.
“For example, now we conceded four against Chelsea, two avoidable goals [against RB Leipzig], we have a problem.
“You can say it doesn’t matter but if we don’t solve it, we will lose games. What we want to win is games so we’ll try to solve it.”
City completed another comeback on Tuesday night as we fought back from being two goals down at half-time to beat RB Leipzig to guarantee top spot in our Champions League group.
Guardiola said his side played well but added that there are improvements to be made after conceding seven goals in our last three matches.
“I don’t think we played bad in the first half, we lost some players, some balls were avoidable,” he said. “But the goals we conceded were frontal balls, one-on-one with the keeper, something wrong happened.
“We created more chances even in the first half, it was quite decent. We didn’t expect them to play five at the back but after I said we’ll finish second in the group if we don’t make a comeback.
“We knew it so just be patient and score one goal then everything will change. We didn’t give up, that’s top but I didn’t have the feeling that they thought we were already top. Maybe I’m wrong but I didn’t have it.”
