The Blues face Huddersfield Town in the Carabao Cup third round, having picked up two wins and a draw against Manchester United, Napoli and Arsenal in the past nine days.
Only a Gabriel Martinelli equaliser prevented City from taking maximum points in the latter of those fixtures, but Pep was full of praise for his players’ attitude in North London.
City’s 33.2% possession was the lowest of Guardiola’s top flight managerial career, but the boss instead pointed towards Arsenal’s threats rather than the Blues’ approach to the game.
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Indeed, Pep believes his players are moving closer to emulating the incredible standards that have been set in recent seasons.
The boss said: “What can I say? I’m really proud, satisfied, I don’t know the right word. We recovered many things that we missed last season. We have incredible spirit.
“Of course, we can’t sustain the way we played all season, we don’t want it, but I give incredible credit to the opponent, Arsenal.
“They’re able to do that to the opponent, I always want to learn to celebrate when we draw and the way we draw away to Arsenal, a Champions League semi-finalist, big contenders for the last seasons, I want to celebrate that point.
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“Since I started my manager career in teams, I ask to give everything to the pitch and in some moments last season we didn’t do it. This season, especially since I would say the USA but also since against United we started to recover many things that defined our teams for many seasons.
“When this happened, I wouldn’t say I don’t care, it’s not the right word but I could not care less that fact we can do better. We will do it and can do some things better.
“We could make better decisions? Yeah, we do it. Play more with the ball? Yeah, we do it. But first comes the spirit that we’ve shown this week.
“We have to take care of these things like a father or mother takes care of their sons. It’s the only thing to be a stable team, step by step, when important injuries come back, we will learn to do better, and Gigi and James will settle better, the team will grow up.”
Hear Pep Guardiola’s thoughts in full via the video above...
