Pep Guardiola picked out Julian Alvarez and John Stones for praise after Manchester City beat Liverpool in the Premier League.
Alvarez was tasked with leading the line against Liverpool in Erling Haaland's absence, while Stones got the nod at right-back over Kyle Walker. Instead of playing as a traditional right-back, Stones migrated into defensive midfield and barely put a foot wrong against a physical Liverpool midfield.
And City boss Guardiola was delighted with both players - particularly opening goalscorer Alvarez - for stepping into critical roles and carrying out their responsibilities well.
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Regarding Alvarez, Guardiola said there were no major tactical tweaks compared to how City normally line up with Haaland.
"Nothing changes. The quality, football the tactic is players," he said. "With Erling you have something special and Julian is something special as well. The vision to have the second one, play that position to Riyad, he was important first three goals.
"With the ball he was so clever and so intelligent, he played with national team, world champions, if you aren’t good you cannot play in a world champion team. Thank you so much for the scouting and Txiki [Begiristain] to discover him and for this price. He’s so humble, he made a really good game."
When asked about Stones, Guardiola was pleased with the defender's positioning, as well as highlighting the role of three other players in making the tactic effective.
He explained: "It’s not easy for him, he has the quality to play there, it’s different when you see the game in front of you, he’s surrounded by their players.
"Like a bubble, to play there is not easy. He has a lot of personality, alongside Rodri and Ruben [Dias] and Nathan [Ake] help a lot. He played really good."
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