Phil Smith reacts as Sunderland lose 3-0 to Manchester City
Manchester City ran out 3-0 winners against Sunderland at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday
Pep Guardiola said his Man City side produced one of their best performances of the season to beat Sunderland on Saturday.
The Black Cats were short of their best at the Etihad Stadium, but Guardiola's comments put the 3-0 defeat into some perspective. The hosts took a two-goal lead in the first half through a long-range shot from Ruben Dias and a header from Josko Gvardiol, with Phil Foden adding a third midway through an end-to-end second half.
The win moved Man City to within two points of the top and Guardiola feels he is seeing positive signs from his team.
“Of course it’s better to be closer than further to the top of the league,” Guardiola said.
“In my experience, to win the Premier League, it’s about the consistency. The consistency comes from the way you play and how much you grow whether you are 2-1 behind or 4-1 in front.
“Today maybe has been one of the best performances of the year, the season for 95 minutes. We had good momentum for the second half. It started from Wolves, the first half was really good, the second half we suffered. We did good things against Fulham in the first half and stopped in the second half. We talked about that and the reasons why.
“It’s not about specific movements defensively or offensively. Today, we played for 90 minutes against a team who have done well so far against top teams. We concede one chance today but apart from that it was a good performance.
“In the Premier League, we had the feeling that Arsenal are going to drop few points and if you want to be there you have to win games and that comes from the way you perform - not just a lucky day or lucky action.”
Guardiola confirmed that Matheus Nunes had not suffered an injury after Luke O'Nien was sent off for a late challenge on the right back, with the Man City boss saying his player was 'lucky' to come away unscathed.
"He's fine," Guardiola said.
"It was lucky it was not his leg that was on the grass... To be honest I thought it was like the first-half action with Josko [Gvardiol], but I've seen on the TV, wow. We were lucky that he's good."
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Sunderland boss delivers verdict on Man City defeat
Régis Le Bris says Sunderland struggled to produce the required level of intensity as they fell to a 3-0 defeat against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.
Goals from Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol put the hosts in a commanding position at the break and the Black Cats rallied and had good chances through Wilson Isidor and Granit Xhaka in the second half, Phil Foden's header settled the contest.
Though Sunderland had some decent spells in the game, there could be no argument about the final result but Le Bris felt his side weren't able to reach the intensity they had found at Liverpool.
"Yeah, probably the difficulty to repeat performances at the high level [was the reason for the result]," Le Bris said.
"Three days ago we were in Liverpool and I think we showed a really strong version of Sunderland, but today maybe a lack of intensity, it wasn't enough to be competitive. We defended well, we tried to build up under pressure, but it wasn't enough to be competitive."
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