‘I have a feeling our players like to play with pressure’

After his Manchester City team swept aside Fulham to ratchet up the pressure on Arsenal in the title race, Pep Guardiola celebrated “the destiny belonging to us”.

“I have a feeling our players like to play with the pressure,” he said after a 4-0 win took City two points clear of Arsenal. “There are these personalities in this team who must enjoy playing with pressure. You can’t play knowing if you lose a game you lose the title. You can’t play with this in the mind.”

“Guys like Rodri and Bernardo Silva, even when a goal behind in Madrid, they laugh and they are calm. They enjoy this pressure. It would be impossible to do all they have all these years without that. They perform every time.”

Guardiola continued: “Our dream is as we said a few weeks ago when [Arsenal] lost against Aston Villa was to arrive in the last games with it in our hands, to play West Ham at home with the destiny belonging to us.”

Josko Gvardiol’s two goals took him to five in the last seven matches and he briefly put himself forward to take the injury-time late penalty and complete his hat-trick. Instead, Julián Álvarez converted to close the goal difference gap on Arsenal to two. “We know who the taker is and he takes,” said Gvardiol.

His manager made sure to keep the Croat’s feet on the ground: “He is unbelievable with both feet. Second half he was not at his best, lost a lot of balls, and as a defender you have to be tight. For him to add the goals he is more than welcome but he has to be more tight.”

Guardiola was far happier with his team’s overall performance: “We played really well and now we recover, go back to Manchester, then come back to London to play the big final [against Spurs] – we have to try and retain our title.”

Marco Silva was in reflective mood after Fulham’s final home game of the season. “It was a successful season with the context of what happened in the summer, a difficult summer after a good last season,” the manager said, harking back to the departure of his star striker, Aleksandar Mitrovic, in August. “We had to rebuild again and we did it really well.”

Silva admitted his team had found no answer to a dominant City. “It is difficult. They control the ball, control the game and take a lot of energy from you. Take a lot of emotional energy too.”