{"id":348317,"date":"2025-12-14T22:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T22:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/348317\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T22:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T22:16:08","slug":"guardiola-impressed-with-fighting-spirit-as-citys-title-push-gathers-momentum-manchester-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/348317\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardiola impressed with fighting spirit as City\u2019s title push gathers momentum | Manchester City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pep Guardiola has warned that Manchester City<\/a> are growing in resilience after Erling Haaland and Phil Foden secured the side\u2019s fifth win in succession and maintained pressure on the Premier League leaders Arsenal.<\/p>\n

City gained revenge for their FA Cup final defeat<\/a> by Crystal Palace in May with a ruthless 3-0 win at Selhurst Park<\/a> after they saw off Real Madrid in the Champions League in midweek. It means they have won all five matches since enduring successive defeats against Newcastle and Bayer Leverkusen at the end of November and are back to within two points of Arsenal.<\/p>\n

Guardiola believes that his team have shown real signs of improvement over the past few weeks and he pointed to previous sides that had to learn to win the hard way.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom experience when you win in the past you believe the past is always perfect \u2013 brilliant, red carpets,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we won 100 points and all the titles we had a lot of games like today and the resilience was part of that. Every plan from every manager wants to do the best but there are moments where you struggle.<\/p>\n

\u201cMadrid was not a perfect game but it is a step that we were there and we fought, whatever happens we fought unbelievably to achieve that. That builds something for that and after we will see. We are in a better position than last season, we are close and this is what we are here to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

City came under huge pressure against Palace in the first half but took the lead through Haaland\u2019s header before Foden doubled their advantage. A late Halaand penalty \u2013 his 17th Premier League goal of the season \u2013 continued Guardiola\u2019s record of never having lost at Selhurst Park, but the City manager paid tribute to the performance of his defence and in particular R\u00faben Dias.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey played together a lot lately for obvious reasons and when you are playing together the connection between the back four is so important,\u201d he said. \u201cThe pace and composure for both full-backs, the leadership from R\u00faben. R\u00faben is an incredible leader, his professionalism, the day before, the day after, how he leads his teammates vocally. He\u2019s an incredible signing for many years to come, he\u2019s a real leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver Glasner said his side must learn to be more ruthless against the top teams. \u201cThe result doesn\u2019t reflect the performance,\u201d the Palace manager said. \u201cWe have to accept it. City were better in the boxes and more efficient than we were.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pep Guardiola has warned that Manchester City are growing in resilience after Erling Haaland and Phil Foden secured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-348317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}