Monday 28 August 2017 11:35, UK
Pep Guardiola overcomplicates football, while Jose Mourinho simplifies it, says Neil Custis on the Sunday Supplement.
Manchester City boss Guardiola saw his side score late for the second time in a week on Saturday, securing a 2-1 win over Bournemouth via Raheem Sterling's 97th-minute winner.
Mourinho's Manchester United beat Leicester 2-0, and sit top of the league after three wins, scoring 10 and conceding none.
The Sun's Custis also insists he has not seen any progress from last season with City, and says they are still overplaying from defence.
He said on Sunday Supplement: "I don't see any progress from last season. I think a lot of players, particularly at the back, don't know what they're doing.
"Whereas Mourinho simplifies football, I think Guardiola overcomplicates it. There were a number of times against Bournemouth where they were getting caught at the back, again with the short passing, again with failing to clear their lines.
"It just seems very complicated sometimes with what they're trying to do."
Sergio Aguero was left on the bench for City, with Guardiola preferring Gabriel Jesus up front at the Vitality Stadium, and Custis believes Aguero's mood will only worsen in the months to come.
"Leaving Aguero out - he wasn't happy - I think that's going to fester, and I think it's going to be an unwanted backdrop to the season.
"He's one of the greatest players to grace the Premier League ever, one of the best foreign players to ever come here. I think he deserves better treatment than what he is getting from Guardiola, he doesn't deserve this.
"He's still one of the greatest goalscorers out there, and that is a backdrop that is going to fester because he's a very popular person at that club, not just with the fans but with the players also.
"Aguero is such an intelligent footballer, he can drop deeper, and he can play the two of them [Jesus and Aguero]. If you're an opposition manager up against those two, you'd think: 'What are we going to do?'
"I don't see the problem. You wonder again whether it's Guardiola flexing his muscles behind the scenes, as he did with Yaya Toure and Joe Hart."
On the other side of Manchester, United have impressed so far this season, and Custis says Mourinho has lifted the mood around Old Trafford in the space of a year.
"You can't help but praise the job he's done. What I see Mourinho having done, having been around the club and going everywhere with them, is that he's got the club back.
"He's got the spirit back, the relationship back between the club and the fans, the fans and the players. The spirit among the players now, compared to two years ago, is chalk and cheese.
"I saw it in pre-season, they like each other, they get on, there's a tremendous bond there. In a year, he has got the giant that had fallen asleep back tall and walking again. I just think he's done a fantastic job there."
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