Pep Guardiola bristled twice at long-held cliches on Monday during Manchester City's press conference ahead of Tuesday night's Champions League first-leg quarterfinal clash with Atletico Madrid. For a start, he got sarcastic when the familiar "overthinking in big games" accusation was launched in his direction: "In the Champions League, I always overthink... I always create new tactics and ideas and tomorrow you will see a new one... we will play with 12 men."
Then, he became dismissive when asked about another tired theme: the contrast in style between himself and Diego Simeone, the Atletico boss, whose teams get typecast as defensive, unscrupulous and on the ethical edge of sports.