Manuel Akanji acknowledges City need to cut out defensive errors after Pep’s warning

Manuel Akanji has acknowledged Manchester City need to cut out the defensive errors that have plagued two of their past three games. Pep Guardiola warned that his side must learn from their mistakes following their 3-2 win over RB Leipzig in the UEFA Champions League.

Speaking with the Independent following City’s comeback win the Swiss defender acknowledged his manager’s warning. He told the media: “We didn’t play well in the first half. We did a lot of mistakes, (in) a lot of duels. We had it change it in the second half. We spoke in half-time that we needed to do better. It still wasn’t great, but we improved a lot, we didn’t do many of the mistakes.”

A mistake from Akanji led to Lois Openda’s opening goal in the 13th minute. 20 minutes later Ruben Dias was at fault as Openda doubled RB Leipzig’s lead. They went in at half-time with a 2-nil lead before City stormed back in the second half to win 3-2.

To his credit Manuel Akanji admitted his mistake and said the issue needs rectifying He also said the team was full of quality. He added: “It happens sometimes. We didn’t plan to go into the game like this. The first goal was me losing a duel off the long ball, the second one was Ruben (Dias) after the pass and it happens sometimes. Normally we don’t do these mistakes but the good thing is we’ve got a good team.”

Manchester City will be hoping to return to winning ways in the Premier League this weekend against Tottenham. The champions have drawn their past two league games against Chelsea and Liverpool. They will also hope that the defensive errors can be put behind them in Sunday’s game at the Etihad.