GUARDIOLA’S DELIGHT AS CITY CLOSE IN ON RECORDS FOOTBALL
Victory at West Ham means milestone marks for most Premier League goals, points and wins are in sight
Manchester City will lift the Premier League trophy next Sunday when they host Huddersfield Town and Pep Guardiola wants it to be a record-breaking day for the club as well as being one of celebration.
City’s emphatic 4-1 thrashing of West Ham United yesterday in London has meant that a number of league records can be broken when they host relegation strugglers Huddersfield at the Etihad Stadium.
Victory over Huddersfield would put them on 96 points, the most earned by a team in the history of the league.
Yesterday’s win over West Ham was their 30th of the season, matching Chelsea’s record from last year for most victories in one season, and triumphing over Huddersfield will give them a 31st success and give them the milestone outright.
City passed the 100 goal mark for the season against West Ham and are now on 102, one behind Chelsea’s record haul of 103 set in the 2009/10 campaign. Two goals against Huddersfield will see them surpass that record as well.
Guardiola admitted that he and his side are motivated to set new records despite having won the title two weeks ago.
“We took it seriously from the beginning and we are so happy to be still getting close to history,” he told the BBC.
“We wanted to win today so that we can get the record of 96 points at home when we get the trophy in front of our people next week. We have something special in terms of confidence and we needed some targets to set in front of us.”
Goals from Leroy Sane, Gabriel Jesus, Fernandinho and an own goal from Pablo Zabaleta gave City their latest success in an one-sided affair at the London Stadium and Guardiola was pleased at the high level his side continue to play at.
“The numbers are a consequence of what we have done. We will try and surpass the number of goals and points. But the guys have to play well and fight a lot,” he said.
“We created a lot of chances as well as scoring lots of goals. We are an honest team we are still pushing to achieve. It is about how your react, not with arrogance or presumptuousness.”
Raheem Sterling, who set up two of City’s goals, said that Guardiola had been tough on the side when a goal from Aaron Cresswell for the home side had halved their advantage in the first half and left it at 2-1 at the interval.
“The manager was disappointed with conceding that goal close to half-time, reminding us of what happened at home to Manchester United,” the midfielder told Sky Sports.
“It was a bit frustrating that the boys slowed down at fourone. I wanted to push on and get as many goals as we can at this stage of the season.”
West Ham remain in danger of relegation. The result leaves them still three points ahead of 18th-placed Southampton with only three games of the season to go.
David Moyes, who took over as manager in November, remains upbeat on his side’s prospects of staying in the Premier League next season.
“When we came in we were in the bottom three, we’re not now,” he said. “There’s other teams who would rather be in our position. We are good enough to win another game at least and let’s hope we can do that.”
Of the loss, Moyes added: “We didn’t play well today. There are reasons for that, and also the quality of Manchester City. We didn’t do things as well as we should.”