Giannelli Imbula of Stoke City is tackled by Jesus Navas of Manchester City during the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester City and Stoke City at Etihad Stadium on April 23, 2016 in Manchester, United Kingdom.
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City needed an 87th-minute own goal to squeeze past Sunderland on the opening weekend, and will continue their campaign away to Stoke in Saturday’s lunchtime kickoff – a match that has been tipped to pose tests which Guardiola has rarely come up against during his time with Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
The Austria star knows Man City will be a different proposition when they visit again under new boss Pep Guardiola for Saturday’s early kickoff, but has vowed the Potters will still make it hard for the Spaniard in his first Premier League away game.
City benefited in the first half when Ryan Shawcross’ grab of Nicolas Otamendi’s arm saw Dean put his whistle to his mouth and Raheem Sterling was adjudged to have impeded Shawcross at the same end in the second half.
“In the first half, we played good and just missed the last pass”.
It is a remarkable change of fortune for Hart, who has been one of the mainstays of City’s successes in recent years and was one of their most consistent players last term.
Given blocked another Aguero effort as City looked to take control amid continued frustration from the home fans, but he could do nothing to stop the Argentina striker adding a second on 36 minutes as he glanced a superb header into the far corner following De Bruyne’s free-kick from the right.
“How can I be happy with this?”
After Tuesday’s 5-0 victory at Steaua Bucharest in the Champions League playoff first leg, City have now scored 11 goals in their opening three fixtures and Guardiola is delighted with their creativity.
“I am really impressed with the quality of the players and their performance”, Guardiola told Sky Sports.
“We’re going to play with the conditions”. From the first minute, we were on top of them.
“But after, he has to play with the ball, he has to help us to create a good build-up”.
Arsenal were cut in price to sign the goalkeeper prior to the season, but have now gone out to as big as 25/1 (26.0) to sign Hart this summer, which appears to claim that we are highly unlikely to bring him in. We know we have a great squad, huge talent, players who can improve the squad. Then, five minutes into stoppage time, Iheanacho dummied a long ball through and Sterling ran through, before passing sideways to Nolito who stroked the ball into an empty net.
He explained: “He’s going to understand what we want, what we want from our goalkeeper”.
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“We were playing well on the front foot and asking questions”.
