Pep Guardiola praises Southampton’s performance after Manchester City narrow victory – Irvine Times

Having failed to win a Premier League game since promotion and suffering injury time against Leicester last week, it looked like a case of how much the home side would win on Saturday.

Erling Haaland’s fifth-minute opener only added to the sense of inevitability, but Southampton stuck to the principles of the under-fired Martin and made life challenging for the champions at the Etihad Stadium.

Cameron Archer hit the post on the stroke of half-time and City eventually won 1-0, taking them top of the table ahead of Sunday’s clash between Arsenal and Liverpool.

Guardiola told Sky Sports: “Today it wasn’t about how (Southampton) defended deep, but how well they played the ball with the goalkeeper and the movement.

“It’s a good game to learn as a manager. I will learn a lot with Russell because they did really well. We were humbled and accepted that they did really well.”

It was an endearing remark from City’s head coach Guardiola, who beat everyone, and it was picked up in the post-match press conference.

“I’m a big believer in the building process,” said the City boss. “I prefer the players to have the ball in their feet, not in their teeth.

“When it happened, it was because it was an amazing process. We weren’t sloppy, we weren’t flat, but we struggled to win the ball back because they are really good.

“I’m a spectator, when I see the opponent doing the things that I like to do with my team and they do it really well, I give a compliment. I’m sure I’ll learn. Some movements, the reasons why they do it.

“They make moves to link up with the striker, over players on the flanks to get you there.

“It’s not easy, but we created enough chances to win better. I like to win like that, as it turned out in the last two games against Wolves and Southampton, who are bottom of the league at the moment and look how difficult it is.

“When people say that in the Premier League anyone can beat anyone, yes, that’s the truth. Every game is a battle, it’s so hard.

“I have no complaints about my team, because when the opponent is good, you have to accept it. This is what happened.”

Southampton were brave in possession and well coached without it, but in the end the result saw them equal their longest start without a win in the league for a season.

The Saints also went nine without a win at the start of 1998-99 and continued to hang on to finish 17th, with Martin saying the performance against City boosted his belief they will beat the drop.

“It’s our job to give them a team to be proud of, that plays in a way that they can identify with, and that team today worked so hard and played with so much guts,” Martin said.

“I believed from the beginning of the season that the players could play like this in the Premier League and allow us to stay, and today gave me even more faith in that.

“But we’ve got a massive fortnight coming up, starting on Tuesday.”

Southampton host Everton and travel to Wolves in the Premier League after Tuesday’s Carabao Cup tie at home to Stoke.

Martin thought he would miss the Toffees clash after picking up a third yellow card of the season for his reaction to Flynn Downs’ yellow card for a clean sheet against Bernardo Silva.

But the Football Association confirmed to the PA news agency that the touchline ban will fall against Stoke.

“We had an apology last week for a decision that was made and not given to us (against Leicester in a 3-2 loss),” Martin said.

“I didn’t say anything after the game in the press, but I’m doing it today because I didn’t swear at the fourth official, I put my hands in the air at a bad decision and I got a card for it.

“I’m not happy because I’m missing a game next week. If I’m wrong and I deserve a yellow card, then I put my hands up.

“But today I think it’s nonsense. I’ll probably get fined for that too, but that’s bullshit.