Manchester City are back on track with three wins in a row and Pep Guardiola is enjoying what he's seeing from his team.
Pep Guardiola
Pep Guardiola is pleased with the signs he's seeing from Manchester City this season
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Pep Guardiola is confident Manchester City are back to their best and over last season's difficulties - and said their Carabao Cup win at Swansea City proved it.
The low-key success in South Wales a week ago might be one of their more routine wins in recent weeks, but the fact it got them back to winning ways after a defeat at Aston Villa was significant in Guardiola's mind.
That victory laid the platform for follow-up successes against Bournemouth and Borussia Dortmund at the Etihad, with the Bundesliga giants vanquished 4-1, continuing an impressive start to the Blues' Champions League campaign.
The ability to shrug off a defeat and quickly get back to winning ways is a clear difference from last season. Twelve months ago, City lost 4-1 in the Champions League and that defeat to Sporting in Lisbon was a third in a row. They would go on to lose five straight matches in a 13-game run without a win.
"It's always important to be good now, but you have to see the team grow and grow and work for it to be better, to be better," said Guardiola. "And when this happens, you arrive in the last stages being there, and after, we see what happens.
"That is the feeling that I have. We have a setback. It doesn't matter, but we lost to Aston Villa, a reaction to Swansea. The people forget Swansea, but Swansea is a start. You know, when you lose a game, you have to win again, quick, quick, quick, otherwise the mountain is more difficult to climb. And winning at Swansea helps us to win Bournemouth.
"And that game [against Dortmund] will help us to compete well against Liverpool. That is what it's all about. And we know last season, we started losing a game, ah, it's one game, two games, ah, two games, another three, and four, and five, and six, and you have to cut, and we did it."
Guardiola again praised the body language of his team and said the signs had been positive since June and their stint at the Club World Cup in the United States.
"I say many times, the body language is how they compete, how they are," he said. "It's easy to say because I would say the same when we lost against Aston Villa one week ago.
"So I said the same, the team I like, but I said that from day one this season when we were in the Club World Cup. I like a lot of things I see.
"And the most important thing is, of course you have to be good now because you have incredible opponents, especially in the Premier League, like Arsenal looks like unbeatable in that moment. It's just to fight to the end, you win titles when the team grows."
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