Considering his team had just racked up their 10th victory in all competitions, scoring 26 goals in the process and conceding just six, Pep Guardiola’s message for his rivals was pretty ominous. “We are far away. If we were close then I could just go back home,” he said with a smirk.
Manchester City’s manager had just been asked to assess how much progress his new charges have made since he officially assumed control at the start of July. Judging by the buildup play on Saturday against Swansea City in the 3-1 victory – which Guardiola rated as their best since his arrival, even if the final ball sometimes went astray – they are not that far away.
“We are here to get better,” he said. “You always have to keep going. It never ends in football. You can always improve – individual performances, collective performances. You can always create different things and that’s why the game is nice.”
That is Pep – ever the perfectionist. Even Sergio Agüero, fresh from scoring his 10th and 11th goals in just six matches after returning from suspension, was not immune from his criticism as Guardiola insisted he “wants more” from his star striker. But while City also went into their sixth Premier League match last season with a 100% record under Manuel Pellegrini only to be beaten at home by West Ham United, there was little chance of the same fate befalling his successor in south Wales – even if, at times, Swansea caused his side some real problems.
Their equaliser came courtesy of a blistering finish from Fernando Llorente – an opponent Guardiola remembers well from his days at Athletic Bilbao – but also highlighted a potential flaw in his new team. With the full-backs Bacary Sagna and Aleksandar Kolarov both given licence to push forward as much as possible, gaps inevitably open up behind them and the presence of the more offensive-minded Ilkay Gundogan in central midfield alongside Fernandinho does leave City open to being caught out.
The Germany international is a magnificent ball player who began most of City’s best attacks on Saturday, allowing David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne to exploit the space in front of Swansea’s defence all afternoon. However, on more than one occasion, the hosts were able to get in behind their opponents and could have been ahead at half-time had Wayne Routledge, in particular, not been so wasteful.
Sagna’s defensive fallibility allowed Gylfi Sigurdsson to take advantage of the Frenchman’s slip and play in Llorente for his goal, even if afterwards Guardiola was at pains to stress that he is more than happy with his options at right-back. “I trust a lot with Bacary Sagna, I trust a lot with Pablo Zabaleta,” he insisted. “I want to, especially in that position, make a rotation in the players.”
In the short term, they will probably be all right. But Guardiola will know sterner tests await, not least against Tottenham – who he described as “one of the best teams in the last two years” – at White Hart Lane next week.
Home and away defeats against Mauricio Pochettino’s side last season severely undermined Pellegrini’s title challenge and it will be most fascinating to see how Guardiola approaches that tactical battle.
For now, though, with a trip to Celtic awaiting on Wednesday in the Champions League tie, Guardiola appeared contented with his lot despite his nursing now-familiar post-match sore throat. “I’m really happy. [The players] work a lot. They know all the staff are working 24 hours for them. It’s getting better,” he said.
“From the beginning, the first training session, they started to work a lot and show their personalities so we are so happy how they are living their lives like football players and that’s why we were able to win the games.
“I liked a lot the way we started our attacks. We created a lot of chances so that Kevin and David were at times attacking the central defenders with the ball. When that happens it makes it more complicated for the opponents so we did that well but just missed the final pass. Of course we missed a few chances but that is normal. We cannot forget that David Silva was injured for the last week or 10 days and Gundogan has come back in the last two weeks and played a lot but he needs to train more and have more games. During the game you can dominate for 90 minutes but if you analyse the game we could have dominated better than that.”
The temporary loss of De Bruyne, who won the decisive penalty before limping off with a hamstring strain that looks like keeping him out of next month’s World Cup qualifiers, will also be an important hurdle to clear – although this City side is already crammed full of match winners.
“It is early to say what we are going to be doing but we want to be champions, we are gunning for titles and we need to keep our heads down and keep going step by step,” Raheem Sterling said.
“We have to just keep humble, keep working hard. We have to remind ourselves it is only September, the season has a lot left in it. We have to take it game by game, I know that sounds boring but that’s the way it is.”
His manager will certainly have no complaints.
