Pep Guardiola felt Manchester City should have scored more goals despite comfortably defeating West Ham 3-1 at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
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City made an electric start, with Raheem Sterling opening the scoring and Fernandinho heading in his first Premier League goal in nearly a year.
City came flying out of the traps and had already produced three attempts on goal before Sterling put them ahead in the seventh minute.
Fernandinho doubled the lead inside 20 minutes, powering a thunderous header past Adrian after a wonderful out-swinging delivery by Kevin de Bruyne.
“I am new here so I don’t know how it works”, said Guardiola after the 3-1 win that took them to the top of the Premier League on goal difference.
The incident went unpunished by referee Andre Marriner and any retrospective disciplinary action could see him banned for games including the derby against Manchester United on September 10.
“Our fans enjoyed it and we are happy”, added the Spaniard, who said he did not see an incident in which Sergio Aguero appeared to elbow West Ham’s Winston Reid.
Middlesbrough have five points from three games. “We can’t play much better than we did in the second half especially when you are missing six seven eight players and you play against them”.
The Italy global had been linked with the Hammers all summer, but the Premier League outfit finally snapped him up for an initial fee of £5million.
City should have been out of sight, but a series of missed chances allowed the visitors back into the game, Antonio thumping a powerful header past Caballero at the far post from Masuaku’s excellent cross.
After the restart, Nolito had the ball in the net only for the “goal” to be ruled out for offside and came close once again with a shot into the side netting after yet another unsafe De Bruyne free-kick was only half-cleared.
You have to give West Ham a lot of credit.
However, following several weeks of working under the management of Pep Guardiola, Sterling now looks a player reborn. “The discipline was good and the second half in particular it was not easy to play the way we wanted”.
Zaza, who scored Juventus’ victor in the Betway Cup win at London Stadium earlier this month, can not wait to get started under new chief coach Slaven Bilic.
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“We need that bit of quality, we are working hard and hopefully we can do it”. They have top-quality players in every position.
