Pep Guardiola demands improvement from Manchester City after fifth straight win
Guardiola does not think the level of performance is good enough to sustain a title challenge.
Pep Guardiola demanded improvement from his Manchester City team despite seeing them comfortably beat West Ham.
Erling Haaland scored two goals and made another as City eased to a 3-0 win at the Etihad Stadium to keep the pressure firmly on Arsenal at the top of the Premier League.
It was their fifth victory in a row in the competition but Guardiola does not think the level of performance is good enough to sustain a title challenge.
The manager said: “I’m happy, I cannot deny that – we are fourth in the Champions League and in the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, but the way we played with the ball we have to improve.
“Otherwise, it will not be enough to arrive in March and April to be contenders to win titles.
“I want to be honest. I said to the players, ‘Merry Christmas everyone but it will not be enough if we don’t improve’.
“In the first half we controlled the game but even with that we were not in the right places to create and we talked about that. We had to create more chances to be solid.
“In the second half when they made a step up we continued to play not good. We did not do the right process to do what we have to do.
“If they had scored to make it 2-1, West Ham would have made it 2-2.”
Guardiola, however, did reflect on some good aspects of the performance, most notably Haaland’s double.
The prolific Norwegian has now scored 38 goals for club and country this season.
He put City in control after five minutes and laid on another goal for Tijjani Reijnders before making victory certain as West Ham tried to mount a comeback in the second half.
Guardiola said: “There were many good things. Offensively, Erling. I always have to thank Erling for the goals but today thanks to him and Phil (Foden) and Nico O’Reilly they helped us to do this type of game.
“Defensively we are improving. We are visualising it with the ball.”
West Ham have now gone six games without a win and will spend Christmas in the relegation zone.
Manager Nuno Espirito Santo said: “We are concerned about the situation that we are in and mainly understand that requires a lot of improvement from ourselves.
“We started really badly again, giving balls away, not applying the way we wanted to do.
“Of course, everything becomes harder when we concede so early but the first period of the game was really hard. There was much improvement in the second half but it didn’t start so well.”
