Pep Guardiola is having to manage expectations after Manchester City’s flawless start to the season and is wary of the quality he saw from Liverpool and Chelsea on Friday.
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Five straight Premier League triumphs has put them five points clear at the top of the table, while they kicked their Champions League campaign off in style with a 4-0 win over Borussia Monchengladbach in midweek, after beating Steaua Bucharest home and away in their qualifying play-off.
This triumph made it eight wins from eight since Guardiola took charge to break the club record start dating back more than a century.
“What’s important is we won a game just three days after a Champions League game, which is always tough”.
“Our high pressing was not ideal today, we had problems with controlling the Bournemouth build-up, but we created a lot of counter attacks”. My target is now to be happy today, drink a little bit of wine and prepare the [next] game – and of course I am going to try to win that League Cup game [at Swansea City], there is no doubt about that.
“We know we have a lot of things to get better”.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has stated that Kevin De Bruyne is one of the Premier League’s best and only Lionel Messi is superior to him in the players that the Catalan has coached.
City was dominant and two clinical counter-attacks led to Kelechi Iheanacho and Raheem Sterling tap-ins after de Bruyne’s opener.
“Maybe Messi sits alone at the table”. He sees absolutely everything.
“He’s there, making every decision, calling all the shots and getting a great performance out of them”, he added.
“So we are who we are and we are so, so lucky we have Kevin with us”.
“We will take care of him and I hope he will enjoy it with us to play his incredible football”.
BOURNEMOUTH (4-1-4-1): Boruc 6; Smith 6, Francis 5, Cook 5, Daniels 5; Surman 6; Ibe 6 (Wilson 46, 6), Wilshere 5 (Gosling 68, 6), ARTER 7, Stanislas 6 (Gradel 74); King 5.
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And Nigerian forward Iheanacho claimed his team-mate knew exactly how to undo Eddie Howe’s visitors from a set-piece.
