Pep Guardiola’s decision to ditch Joe Hart over the summer and sign Claudio Bravo at Manchester City was met with some opposition, but City’s summer signing didn’t so himself any favours this evening at Barcelona…
Manchester City fell to a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Barcelona, and manager Guardolia shocked all of us by deciding not to play Sergio Aguero from the start in what arguably was City’s biggest game of the season so far.
City made a bright start to proceedings, but fell behind after sixteen minutes in unfortunate circumstances. Fernandinho slipped inside the box, and Lionel Messi of all people was there to pounce and fire the hosts into the lead.
It was at 1-0 where Claudio Bravo made his costly error. In the second half, the 33-year-old came out a long way to retrieve the ball and set City onto the front foot, instead, he gave the ball to Luis Suarez, who attempted the chip, which Bravo handled outside of the box. The Chilian was shown a straight red card for his troubles.
Willy Cabellero came on his place and managed to save a Neymar penalty, but was unable to stop Messi from scoring two more and Neymar adding a Barcelona fourth goal.
Joe Hart did make a couple of errors over the summer in goal for England at Euro 2016, but nothing worthy of him being dropped by new manager Guardolia, looking solid in between the sticks for domestically for Manchester City.
Despite making some quality saves, Guardolia favoured a goalkeeper that could play it out from the back, and chose Claudio Bravo to succeed Joe Hart in goal. However, he might be questioning his decision at the moment after Bravo’s latest performance.
Bravo has not made the fastest of starts to life in the Premier League, and has been criticised by some for recent performances in the Premier League, with some fans seriously questioning the decision of Pep Guardolia to get rid of Hart over the summer.
Fans took to Twitter to express their views on Claudio Bravo’s performance against Barcelona, who made a good double-save in the first half, but unsurprisingly, this did not get a mention as fans slammed the goalkeeper off the back of his red card at the Camp Nou.
Dont think Hart would have done that…poor by Bravo. #mcfc
— Billo (@Billo20Four7) 19 October 2016
Bravo was always going to cost #mcfc more points than he wins them. Easier to train good keeper to pass short, than a poor keeper to improve
— Elder Grizzly (@ElderGrizzly) 19 October 2016
That’s awful goalkeeping from Bravo ?
— Andrew Oates (@AAOates1) 19 October 2016
Bravo really is awful ?? It’s a crime that’s he’s replaced Hart at City!
— Sam Watts (@Watts18Sam) 19 October 2016
What a horrible mistake by Bravo. Ridiculous. Awful. Disastrous.
— Anis Tabet (@AnisTabet23) 19 October 2016
Bravo has always been a disaster waiting to happen, Pep made a big mistake to get rid of Hart. He’ll laughing at him now…
— anderson allan (@amaniswirv) 19 October 2016
What a comedy of errors, Bravo. Awful decision making.
— Nikhil Saglani (@Nikhil_Saglani) 19 October 2016
