Man City boss Pep Guardiola's rant about football's statistics obsession

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City have a massive few months ahead of them after they left the door ever so slightly ajar for Liverpool in the Premier League title race.

They edged passed Everton in a close-run affair at Goodison Park on the weekend and the Spanish gaffer will be hoping the next few weeks are far more comfortable.

However, they are all but through to the quarter-finals of the Champions league having helped themselves to five brilliant goals at Sporting Lisbon in their last 16 first leg.

They are the favourites among bookies to finally end their continental hoodoo with Guardiola himself stating that Liverpool may be the only ones who could stop them.

Guardiola spent big in the summer to reinforce his ranks but, on paper, the marquee signing of Jack Grealish hasn’t necessarily panned out.

City coughed up an eye-watering £100 million to land Grealish and, while he might not have set the world alight in sky blue, Guardiola is insistent that statistics don’t tell the full story.

“Always we talk about the statistics – the players today play for the statistics but this is the biggest mistake they can do,” he said.

“We’re involved in that. Statistics are just a bit of information that we have but there are players that make the team play good and they are not into statistics. But the players say how many goals I score or how many assists or…

“With these kinds of situation, they forget everything. Statistics never existed before. It’s how you play today if you perform to your maximum, to your best, help your teammates to make the process defensively and offensively better – it’s enough. Thanks to that we are going to win.