Pep Guardiola anger turns to pride in telling seven minute Man City synopsis

This was not a day for berating a battered and bruised squad. It took Pep Guardiola a few minutes to calm down at full-time, but he eventually came to that sensible conclusion at Bournemouth.

Guardiola had teased some positive injury news on the eve of Manchester City's trip south. 'You will see tomorrow', he hinted. Twenty four hours later and Kyle Walker, Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku, stepped off the team coach at the Vitality Stadium.

Guardiola offered an unhelpful diagnosis on the absent John Stones and Ruben Dias pre match, before taking his usual seat in the away dugout to stew for a few minutes. He often spends time before an away game taking a moment to himself, but this felt like he was more agitated than usual. Something wasn't right.

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Just two minutes in and Guardiola was reshuffling his pack, beckoning Nathan Ake and Manu Akanji over to change something tactically - Bournemouth had already forced Ederson into a double save. There was no shortage of application from City, but the intensity and finesse was lacking. Ederson kept Bournemouth out again, but sent three passes needlessly out of play or to an opposition shirt. Walker was all over the place all afternoon on his return and Ilkay Gundogan was sloppy again.

At one point, Guardiola threw his hands up in sheer frustration and took his seat. He gathered a handful of players - Walker, Akanji, Ake, Erling Haaland and Matheus Nunes - for a final chat outside the dressing room at half-time. But seconds later, Walker somehow ran around a high ball and Ederson was needed to save again.

Guardiola rolled his eyes in disgust when Walker conceded a needless foul and earned a booking right in front of him. If he could have substituted him on the spot he would have done, but Ake needed to be replaced instead.

There was praise for Walker and other players who put their bodies on the line, but Guardiola did admit that 'we could not match the intensity' of Bournemouth.

"We spoke before and I know we in a difficult position now but if you want to handle this team you have to feel that you have an opponent close to you for 90 minutes," he reflected. "In the past we were able to handle these situations and today we could not."

If Guardiola was in a bad mood with some of his players on Friday, that mood won't have improved on the south coast. He bemoaned their lack of response to Bournemouth's direct tactics, and even with three returning players he lost two more and the injury 'emergency' has now resulted in back-to-back defeats.

At the whistle, he slowly walked onto the pitch, gave a short applause to the travelling fans, and trudged off - briefly pausing to turn back - before heading down the tunnel.

"Sometimes you have to accept the opponent are better," he said post-match, clearly calmer and keen to stress that the injury problems were affecting every corner of the squad. Rico Lewis needed a rest, Akanji was 'not in a good condition', Ake was a last minute inclusion.

In a short, sweet, seven minute post-match debrief with reporters, Guardiola calmly outlined the lengths his players had gone to to make themselves available, credited Bournemouth's tactics, and humbly accepted defeat - while also pointing out the chances City had to change the narrative.

A few minutes later, Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola was asked about the result being the best in his club's history. There are City, licking wounds after a first defeat in the Premier League in 11 months, and in the middle of a complex injury crisis. Bournemouth are in form, fit, and produced their best ever result. It takes a lot to beat the champions.

The sight of some returning stars saw Guardiola mocked on social media before the game for describing the injury problems in such dramatic fashion. How can it be an 'emergency', how can you be 'in trouble', when De Bruyne, Doku and Savinho were on your bench?

He knows it is more nuanced than that, and so - deep down - do those doing the mocking. Guardiola, as ever, sees the bigger picture far clearer than the rest of us.