Did the result reflect the performance?

No. As a manager it is difficult to say you are not happy in th way we worked, especially with how we played in the first 45 minutes. There was nto a lot of difference between the two teams.

Last season we lost 4-0 here to Man City and we knew they could score more.

In this game, I repeat in the first 45 minutes we played well, we didn’t ever feel on the bench that City could score. We had good possession, maybe we needed a couple of more players to get in their box but it was a tight game.

We were very unlucky with the first goal, the rebound of Issa Diop that put them ahead and then Man City are more dangerous.

We conceded the second goal too easily.

Every time that we tried to arrive to their box, they committed 13 fouls. We had just five. We were a little bit innocent.

After that we had a couple of chances to make it 2-1, finally with spaces in the last minutes the scored their goals.

Any complaints about VAR decisions or the amount of intervention?

I think that it will be good for the referee. I always say it is almost impossible for the referee to see everything, if it is 5cm offside or not. It is useful for the results.

The big screen displays the “no goal” VAR decision to rule out Gabriel Jesus’ goal against West Ham (Image: IAN KINGTON/AFP/Getty Images)
It is not easy to accept to wait those seconds but if you use it in the correct way and are not always asking for the VAR, I think that it will improve the game.

On the penalty, encroachment from Rice, are you saying players to simply not encroach at all as you won’t get away with it?

That is what I am saying about VAR and the way you use it.

It will stop important mistakes.

If you use it for every corner then you can probably find four or five penalties. In both boxes, easily. The referee thinks thats Declan Rice has intervened to clear the ball, that’s his decision, so we can’t really talk about it.

But now, will you tell your players to stop?

If Declan doesn’t participate in that then it doesn’t matter anyway as there will be players from their team that will come in also.

But if he arrives before the striker, after the rebound then of course maybe you have to repeat the penalty.

That is the use of the VAR wemust be very careful of, especially from corners. Maybe you are grabbing and pushing, so many things, that you must be careful when you use it.

I can talk about the goal, the fourth or fifth one, there was a foul on Snodgrass for me. You can talk about the action 50 metres away, the referee decides it is not a foul.

The referee is there and he decided it was not a foul. I think that with good criteria, VAR will be useful.

Would you like your players to be more cynical with tactical fouls?

No, we must be more intelligent though to know when to make them, not use it as a system.

If you review the game today, we didn’t crate too many chances because many of our attacking chances were stopped by a foul.

They had 13 fouls, we had five fouls.

But I repeat, I don’t think that is just the reason we lost 5-0.

Happy with his performance. He worked the 90 minutes, I said always before the game that maybe if you think because you play Man City you must play all defensive.

You can do it yes but for me, that is not the way you improve this team. That is why we played with Haller, Lanzini, Antonio, Anderson, Wilshere and we had the good level in the firs thalf.

We are going to some more goals with those players and Haller will be an important player.

Jack Wilshere OK after you subbed him off?

Jack was OK, I made that change because he is coming back from a long injury. No problem.

Transcribed by Football.London