We couldn't match Bournemouth's intensity, says Guardiola | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola says his players struggled to match Bournemouth's intensity in Saturday's 2-1 defeat at the Vitality Stadium.

Our club record run of 32 Premier League games without defeat was brought to an end by strikes from Antoine Semenyo and Evanilson on the south coast.

Josko Gvardiol's header with just under 10 minutes of normal time remaining gave the champions hope but, despite a late siege on the Cherries goal, it wasn't to be.

Bournemouth 2-1 City | Match report

After our Carabao Cup exit on Wednesday, it ends a tough week for Guardiola's injury-hit squad.

Reflecting on the reason for the loss, Guardiola believes his players weren't as sharp as our opponents for a number of reasons.

"We couldn’t match up to the intensity," he began in his post-match press conference.

"All the situations with the long balls, we couldn’t win it.

"And when you don’t win these types of balls to Semenyo and others, our central defenders and strikers have to defend deeper.

WATCH: 241102_GUARDIOLA _POST_BOURNEMOUTH_A_PL

"We struggled to make our [game], but especially for that. In the game, for many reasons, they were higher than us.

"We have players with rhythm and the other players have a lack of rhythm because we could not train due to injuries. But we knew it.

"Ruben's injury is muscular and will be out until the international break. And John has a fasciitis splinter in the feet and today he was not ready.

"Manu and Nathan made an incredible effort to be there in a demanding game.

"Kyle [Walker] has gone 18 or 19 days and only one training session with us and today he was there.

"This is the position we have, we try to have minutes to arrive fresh here. We could not handle. They were another pace and we could not handle it."