Guardiola was generally pleased with the way his men played over that 45 minutes as they assumed a 2-0 lead through Kevin De Bruyne and Kelechi Iheanacho before Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s reply just prior to the break.
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Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho, has claimed some of his players were overawed by the occasion of the Manchester Derby.
Mourinho mixed things up for the second half, throwing on Marcus Rashford, Ander Herrera and later Anthony Martial and taking a more direct approach in search of an equalizer, but City still looked more unsafe on the counter-attack and De Bruyne almost restored the two-goal cushion when he ran onto Leroy Sane’s pass and shot against the inside of the post.
“I’ve conceded many goals against Mourinho’s teams on the counter-attack because his teams are really good in that part of the game”, he said.
Bravo was making his debut after being brought in from Barcelona to replace Joe Hart, who joined Torino on loan.
“We played well against a very big team and a team that was very strong and they kept putting the ball in the air to try and complicate things, but we survived”.
Victory over United sent City three points clear at the top of the English Premier League, and ended Jose Mourinho’s flawless start to the season as United manager.
Mourinho withdrew full debutant Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard at half-time and strongly criticised some of his players’ performances.
Elsewhere, Guardiola defended goalkeeper Claudio Bravo despite his blunder after dropping what appeared to be a straight-forward catch into the path of Ibrahimovic who cut the deficit with a wonderfully controlled finish. But this is football and sometimes players disappoint managers. I was feeling [we would score again] until the last minute, like we did at Hull City. “In the first half we were incredible when we controlled the ball, had lots of chances and in the second half we played differently, defensively we were very, very solid”.
“City were on a different level to anything I’ve seen in the Premier League for a few years now”.
Iheanacho (above. Photo: Getty), ensuring that suspended Sergio Aguero was not unduly missed up front, underlined City’s dominance, tapping home after De Bruyne’s 36th-minute left-footed strike had come back off the post.
“Claudio Bravo is a penalty and a red card”, he said.
Asked on the shot-stopper’s performance after the game, Guardiola could not hold back in his praise.
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Having made an error for United’s goal, Bravo was forced into a last-ditch tackle on Rooney in order to prevent another, a challenge that left the striker in a heap on the turf.
