Premier League: Pep Guardiola demands more from Man City

Huddersfield Town 0 Manchester City 3

Manchester City hammered Huddersfield 3-0 yesterday as they kept Liverpool within sight at the top of the Premier League table. A last-gasp goal from Harry Winks also earned Tottenham a valuable three points away at Fulham.

City’s walk-in-the-park win at Huddersfield means they’ve moved back to within four points of Liverpool (who beat Brighton on Saturday). The win maintains their five-point advantage over Tottenham in third.

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“The way we played we didn’t deserve more than three goals,” said City manager Pep Guardiola. “We will improve in the future.”

Danilo put the visitors one up on 18 minutes when his long-range effort was deflected into the Huddersfield net by Christopher Schindler. Two goals in two minutes early in the second half ended the game as a contest.

Leroy Sane teed up Raheem Sterling for a diving header and the German then scored one for himself as City took their tally to the season into three figures.

Guardiola seeks more

“What we have done so far has been incredible, in the league and the Carabao Cup,” said the City manager. “We’ve scored a lot of goals. So far, so good. One team has been better but we’re in January and there’s many more games to play. We have to focus on what we have to do.”

Despite the comfortable victory, the Spaniard wants to see more from his defending champions. “If we want to... arrive in the last stages of all competitions, our game has to improve,” said Guardiola.

“More pace, more passes in a row. We were not able to make a lot of passes, 10-15 passes in a row.”

The Spaniard was quick to acknowledge that City could do better. “When a team defends like [Huddersfield], you have to commit sometimes to move them a little bit. That is what we have to improve,” he said.

“Always in football when you play good you have the ball as much as possible. Here we had the ball but not in effective positions and sometimes we lost the ball quite easily.”

Basement boys

Life can’t get much worse for Huddersfield. The Yorkshire club is rooted to the foot of the Premier League on 11 points, ten shy of Newcastle, who lie 14th, just outside the relegation zone.

Having sacked manager David Wagner last week, Huddersfield have placed Mark Hudson in temporary charge. He will need to work a miracle if the Terriers are to avoid the drop in May.

“It’s been a tough week, saying goodbye to the boss [Wagner] after three and a half years,” said Hudson.

Fulham 1 Tottenham Hotspur 2

Three points and one place above Huddersfield are Fulham, although the Cottagers looked set to pick up a point at home to Tottenham until the very last minute of stoppage time.

That was when Harry Winks put his head to Georges-Kevin Nkoudou’s quality cross to break Fulham’s heart.

It was tough on the home side, who had gone ahead on 17 minutes when Fernando Llorente put the ball into his own net. Dele Alli levelled for Tottenham early in the second half and then Winks scored the crucial winner. This moved them four points clear of fourth-place Chelsea who lost 2-0 against Arsenal on Saturday.

Alli anxiety

Despite his relief at the three points, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino may have another crisis on his hands thanks to Alli’s hamstring injury. Having lost Harry Kane to an ankle injury until March, Tottenham would be devastated to see their talismanic midfielder sidelined.

“It is in the left hamstring,” he said. “I hope it is not a massive problem, but we will need to assess.”

Happy Harry

Winks described his winner as a bit of a “blur”. But if he couldn’t remember much about heading home Nkoudou’s cross, he was well aware of what his goal meant for the morale of the squad.

“We needed to bounce back after [losing to Manchester] United,” he said. “We knew it would be a tough game, we had to try and dig in and do our best and we got lucky and got three points.”

Premier League results

• Wolverhampton Wanderers 4 Leicester City 3
• AFC Bournemouth 2 West Ham United 0
• Liverpool 4 Crystal Palace 3
• Manchester United 2 Brighton & Hove Albion 1
• Newcastle United 3 Cardiff City 0
• Southampton 2 Everton 1
• Watford 0 Burnley 0
• Arsenal 2 Chelsea 0
• Huddersfield Town 0 Manchester City 3
• Fulham 1 Tottenham Hotspur 2

Next Premier League fixtures

Tuesday 29 January (7.45pm unless stated)

• Arsenal vs. Cardiff City
• Fulham vs. Brighton & Hove Albion
• Huddersfield Town vs. Everton
• Wolverhampton Wanderers vs. West Ham United
• Manchester United vs. Burnley (8pm)
• Newcastle United vs. Manchester City (8pm, live on BT Sport 1)

Wednesday 30 January (7.45pm unless stated)

• AFC Bournemouth vs. Chelsea
• Southampton vs. Crystal Palace
• Liverpool vs. Leicester City (8pm, live on BT Sport 1)
• Tottenham Hotspur vs. Watford (8pm)