Pep Guardiola pleased with Manchester City’s defensive display in win over Fulham

Erling Haaland opened the scoring for Manchester City against Fulham on Sunday when he dispatched a penalty in the third minute at Craven Cottage.

Carlos Vinicius equalised for the home side with a neat finish in the first half before forward Julián Álvarez scored a stunning goal to put the reigning champions back in the lead.

City only conceded one shot on target over the 90 minutes against Marco Silva’s side and after the victory in London, which saw City go top of the Premier League, Pep Guardiola hailed his side’s defensive display in the 2-1 win.

Pep: City defend better now

“After we came from Bayern Munich, we come from the run of victories and it looked like Arsenal was the target. We have to beat them to be there,” said Guardiola.

“And when you play that game, you drop a little bit [afterwards]. But I didn’t see that drop much because the team was ready but the quality of Fulham, their exceptional season, the grass was so dry for both teams and difficult to give rhythm.

“They played really good and played really well. We found our momentum and played properly. It’s the gap we improved the most compared to the past - we defend. We didn’t concede a lot of shots on target with the ball, maybe another one in the second half beyond the 18-yard box and no more than that.

“We played really well, the last eight or nine minutes we played so smart, we did really well. Having Erling and Phil we have to play this type of ball and we were brilliant.

“In the last minutes, I’m very pleased with how they handled the situation. These players don’t need a leader, they know exactly what they have to do.”