PEP FINALLY LEARNS TO LOVE SERGIO THE ‘LEGEND’
FIFTEEN goals in seven days and after this latest dazzling deluge of goals, Pep Guardiola reclined into a chair and at long last appeared at ease with his Manchester City team.
The statistics were quite spectacular. City had 28 shots in a Premier League away game. They made 637 passes to Watford’s 311. Six City starters had passing accuracy beyond 90 per cent.
This was the Abu Dhabi dream, the reason City pursued Guardiola for so long. Having declared his satisfaction, Guardiola was rather philosophical as he reflected on the flaws that derailed his first season in English football.
‘I know it’s always failures when you don’t win, so we were not good enough,’ he said. ‘Chelsea were better, and Tottenham were better. You have to accept it.
‘Today it was like, “Oh no, we cannot improve (on that performance)”. But of course we can improve!’
For City’s rivals, the thought of this squad improving even further is an ominous warning.
‘We will see when we are going to face the last champions (Chelsea) in two weeks,’ he said. ‘We are making steps forward. We won a lot of games away last season, but that kind of performance today we didn’t see. My feeling is everybody knows what they have to do.’
As an antidote, it was curious to hear Watford manager Marco Silva reflect that City are still behind the level of Guardiola’s Bayern Munich, who he encountered in the Champions League in charge of Olympiacos.
Silva blamed the officials for two offside goals, and his defenders for conceding from two setpieces but such excuses do a disservice to the levels City reached.
This was a masterclass. City were at their free-wheeling best, their intoxicating brand of high-intensity attacking football tearing Watford into smithereens.
It may even prove to be the week that Sergio Aguero finally, at long last, won over his demanding manager. The Argentinian was sensational here, sealing a hat-trick, having previously scored against Liverpool and Feyenoord.
Aguero is now only two goals away from matching Eric Brook’s pre-war record of 177 City goals. The perceived wisdom this summer has been that the pursuit of Alexis Sanchez would have seen Aguero become the fall guy.
It feels churlish to say it about a talent as rich as Sanchez, but in time, Guardiola may reflect that his lapsed pursuit could be a positive. Aguero is in devastating form and the explosive talents of Jesus, Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane will all receive more time on the field without Sanchez adding further competition.
It felt like progress to hear Guardiola speak of Aguero as a ‘legend’, call for the club to publicly celebrate his record-breaking achievements and then speak of his frontman’s progress.
‘I like as a manager not to have just one, two, or three players defending, and same for who scores the goals,’ Guardiola added.
‘I like everyone to defend, everyone has to play, everyone has to move with the ball. The ball is the reasons the players are here.’