Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
pep guardiola demanded improvement from them Manchester City The team defeated them despite looking comfortable West Ham,
Erling Haaland scored twice and added another as City kept the pressure on as they won 3–0 at the Etihad Stadium. armory At the top of the Premier League.
It was their fifth consecutive win in the competition but Guardiola does not feel the level of performances was good enough to sustain a title challenge.
The manager said: “I’m happy, I can’t deny it – we’re fourth in the Champions League and in the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, but we have to improve the way we played with the ball.
“Otherwise, it will not be enough to come into March and April to be a contender to win the title.
“I want to be honest. I said to the players, ‘Merry Christmas to everyone but it won’t be enough if we don’t improve.’
“In the first half we controlled the game but still we were not in the right places to create and we talked about that. We had to create more chances to be solid.
“In the second half when they took a step forward we continued to play well. We just didn’t follow the right process to do what we had to do.
“If they had made the score 2-1, West Ham would have made it 2-2.”
However, Guardiola considered some good aspects of the performance, particularly Haaland’s double.
The prolific Norwegian has now scored 38 goals for club and country this season.
He put City in control after five minutes and scored another goal for Tijjani Rijnders before sealing the win as West Ham tried to mount a comeback in the second half.
Guardiola said: “There were a lot of good things. Offensively, Erling. I always have to thank Erling for the goals, but today thanks to him and Phil (Foden) and Nico O’Reilly, they helped us to have this type of game.
“Defensively we’re improving. We’re figuring it out with the ball.”
West Ham have won six games so far and will spend Christmas in the relegation zone.
Manager Nuno Espirito Santo Said: “We are concerned about the situation we are in and mainly understand that we need to improve a lot ourselves.
“We started really bad again, giving balls away, not executing like we wanted to.
“Of course, when we give up so early everything becomes difficult but the first half of the game was really difficult. There was a lot of improvement in the second half but it didn’t start so well.”