Pep Guardiola admits he may have made a major mistake in freezing out Yaya Toure as Manchester City head into a defining Champions League game shorn of their weekend match-winner.
Toure scored twice in Saturday’s 2-1 win at Crystal Palace after almost three months out — but will be unavailable away at Borussia Monchengladbach on Wednesday having been excluded from boss Guardiola’s Euro squad in a long- running feud involving his agent.
Well aware that City are still misfiring, Guardiola will be gutted to be without a player whose quality — he says — has never been in doubt.
The former Barcelona manager concedes that his team cannot win the Premier League title if they continue to play as they are.
Saturday’s victory, achieved in a show of grit and graft after Connor Wickham’s equaliser, was welcomed as a second win in six games but the style did not satisfy City’s perfectionist leader.
Tough league fixtures away at Burnley and at home against Chelsea await but Gladbach are closest on the horizon.
And Guardiola’s error is excluding Toure means they will be without a player who has a record of digging out results when things aren’t going City’s way.
‘I’m here to take decisions. Maybe I make mistakes, but I have to take decisions and I respect that all the people cannot agree with me. That happened,’ the Spaniard said.
‘I spoke in the last month, many times with Yaya because he was my player with Barcelona, I know him very well. So I know how he is like a player.
‘As a player there is no doubt — if there was a doubt he would not be here. He is another guy to compete with our midfield players and increase our level.’
Toure was a force in the middle of the park, his two goals from two shots complemented by a 89 per cent pass completion rate that turned the game in City’ s favour after their second half setback with his stand-off at an end.
He sent a fine right-foot finish into the top corner, via a deflection, for the first, before converting Kevin De Bruyne’s low corner for the second.
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