Pep’s energy and frustration drag City to victory

LONDON: An animated Pep Guardiola was effectively Manchester City’s 12th man as they overcame a shaky start to maintain their 100 per cent Premier League home record at the Etihad.

Plenty has been written on Guardiola the coach but Saturday’s win over Everton was all about Pep the Motivator.

Standing in the driving Manchester rain protected by a sky blue City bobble hat and sensing his players might not be ‘at it’ in the opening 15 minutes, Guardiola dragged his team on through force of personality.

He verbally grilled Kyle Walker and Nicolas Otamendi for giving Bernard too much space on the left, he put his hands on his head and hopped around like Basil Fawlty in the technical area when Leroy Sane slowed down a promising attack by passing the ball backwards.

The sheer frustration and energy worked a treat. City responded to their manager’s dark mutterings by gradually pinning Everton back and scoring either side of the break through Gabriel Jesus.

When the visitors pulled a goal back through Daniel CalvertLewin after 65 minutes, Guardiola immediately sent for Raheem Sterling and he grabbed City’s killer third goal.

“This was a tricky game, a dangerous game,” said Guardiola. “We knew in our minds we would have to suffer and we did. But we have fantastic players, human beings and they made an incredible effort to win the game only three days after we played a tough European game.’’

Afterwards, he tried to explain why he had appeared so frustrated — muttering to himself whenever possession was surrendered — as City tried to get to grips with Everton’s five-man defence.

“There were spaces for us but we couldn’t find them,” he said. “But we did get better at the end of the first half and the start of the second.’’