The Chilean was recalled to the starting lineup after playing backup to Willy Caballero for the past two months and impressed with his distribution, starting a number of attacks with his incisive passing.
And Guardiola was full of praise afterwards, hailing him as one of the top three goalkeepers in world football when it comes to using his feet.
“I decide [to put him in the side],” he said. “I had no reason, Willy is training good.
“I will decide game by game and today I decide that.
“With our build up Claudio is the best goalkeeper in the world with [Marc Andre] Ter Stegen and Manuel Neuer in the build-up, with the feet, and he help us a lot to create good build-up.”
City opened the scoring after 31 minutes when Ahmed Elmohamady put through his own net, and their lead was doubled early in the second half through Sergio Aguero.
Fabian Delph added a third before Andre Ranocchia puled one back.
Aguero now has 10 goals from his last 10 games, moving him on to 28 for the season – and Guardiola says he has seen a big improvement in his all-round game in recent weeks.
“Sergio make an amazing step forward in the last two months,” he said.
“He is playing unbelievable, scoring one goal a game.
“I didn’t speak with him but I am pretty sure he is so happy. He is a guy who likes to score goals and he did it again.”
