The Manchester City boss admits his managerial approach has changed with age, with the Catalan now preferring to delay addressing issues with performance until he has had a chance to properly analyse a game.
Guardiola, who can still recall the regret he felt after one post-match outburst as a young coach at Barcelona, says he has realised that no player intends to perform badly, and therefore chooses to let the passions of a matchday subside before discussing areas for improvement.
“A little bit,” he said when asked if his attitude had change ahead of City’s FA Cup game against Peterborough United.
“I know them [the players] much better. I understood as I got older that they want to do well.
“Me personally, as a manager, I am not cool enough or clear enough to analyse what happened in the game immediately to the players. There are too many emotions.
“Maybe I learned. Sometimes I talked after the game. Sometimes, when I am angry, I say take time, go home and tomorrow we’ll talk with the team about what you feel was the real game.
“Sometimes you are aggressive, and you are unfair to the players because they want to do well. I have this principle for a long time.
“They want to run, they want to fight, they want to win and when it doesn’t happen, sometimes it is because it was not clear enough or they have a bad day.
“It’s happened. They have the responsibility to avoid it. It is the most important part of the week, the 90 minutes, but it has happened.”
Jack Grealish could return from injury when City taken on Championship strugglers Peterborough on Tuesday.
The midfielder was back in the matchday squad against Everton following his three-game absence and Guardiola has reiterated how happy he is with his summer signing.
Grealish has provided three goals and three assists so far this season, but his manager does not want him to become overly focused on his statistics, believing there is much more to a performance than a player’s numerical output.
“His stats are quite similar to Aston Villa in terms of ball contact close to the goal,” Guardiola added.
“He has had the chances. At Crystal Palace, in 20 minutes, he could have scored three goals, but it didn’t happen.
“We didn’t sign him to score 45 goals. That’s not his quality, he has another one.
“Statistics are just a pattern of information that we have. There are players who make the team play good without the statistics.
“If you perform to your maximum, if you perform to your best and you helped your team-mates and make the process better, it is enough.
“It is thanks to that, that you are going to win a game. It is about playing good. I would tell him if he wasn’t playing good, but it’s not the case.”
