Perfectionist in Pep
Guardiola forbids him to get remotely carried away by Manchester City's
100 percent record this season even though they made it 10 wins out of
10 under their new Spanish manager on Saturday.
Indeed, Raheem
Sterling, who scored in the 3-1 win at Swansea City that stretched their
lead at the top to four points, made a telling observation afterwards
about the insatiable nature of Guardiola's stewardship.
"He is not
overly excited by this," explained the England striker, who is not the
only player to have flourished since Guardiola took over at the Etihad.
"His
team talks and motivation is very good. He is a manager who demands
more every game. He makes everyone hungry and wanting to keep running
for him."
To illustrate Sterling's point, Guardiola was quick
afterwards to qualify his evident delight by saying that he expects more
-- even from star striker Sergio Aguero, who had just scored twice to
make it a sixth successive league win.
"Sergio is quality. His
first step, second step in the box is so good and that is why he is one
of the best strikers in the world," Guardiola conceded. "But I want to
help him improve his game."
Guardiola is improving everyone's game
at City, it appears, so that even on a day when they were not at their
silky best, his men still had far too much quality for Swansea.
Aguero
had fired them ahead before Fernando Llorente's equaliser suggested it
might prove an awkward afternoon for the leaders, who had been too
wasteful for Guardiola's liking.
"We missed a lot of final passes and that happened a lot of times in the first half," he noted.
"You
have to win the ball, use the ball and use the counter attack. It is
the first time we have been at 1-1 at half-time and we spoke of how we
had to be like a team and in the second half we played really well." His
words evidently worked wonders.
Aguero scored from the spot in
the 65th minute following Mike van der Hoorn's elbow on Kevin de Bruyne
and Sterling scored a fine third in the 77th after a typically swift,
incisive counter.
It meant Guardiola became only the second
manager to win his first six Premier League matches, joining Carlo
Ancelotti. The Italian went on to win the title with Chelsea after his
brilliant start in 2009-10.
The only thing to cloud Guardiola's
day was an injury to De Bruyne, who limped off with what an apparent
hamstring problem. He will be assessed on Sunday as the manager ponders
his squad for Wednesday's Champions League match at Celtic.


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