End of the errors key for Pep in Blues’ form
PEP Guardiola has praised his City defenders for toughening up and eradicating the errors that scuppered their Premier League title chances last season.
The Blues have a chance to go top of the table tonight with a win against Aston Villa following their 4-0 dismantling of Crystal Palace on Sunday.
Palace Roy Hodgson declared after the game that City have all the qualities needed to win the Premier League, and while Guardiola won’t countenance such talk himself, he has been delighted with the tightening up that has enabled their improvement.
Ruben Dias and John Stones recorded their ninth clean sheet in 10 games together as City remain the meanest defence in the league.
Guardiola’s side are no longer making the kind of mistakes that cost them last season and earlier in this campaign against Tottenham and Leicester.
“If you see Raz [Sterling] and Bernardo [Silva] and Gabriel [Jesus] and when they came in Ferran [Torres] and the other subs the way we press, how aggressive we are, how intense we are – it is so important, so good,” said Guardiola.
“It helps the central defenders to be better, but we cannot deny the guys behind don’t make mistakes, they are so consistent and when the opponents scored a goal it is because they did well – not because we give it to them. Last season it happened many times that the opponents didn’t do anything and we gave them goals. This season we have conceded few chances because we don’t make mistakes.”