Pep Guardiola was satisfied with what he called “the first step” after launching his Manchester City reign with a victory. But the Spaniard admitted his side would have to improve on their season-opening 2-1 defeat of Sunderland.
Guardiola arrived in the Premier League with a bang as he left England goalkeeper Joe Hart on the substitutes bench, omitted Yaya Toure altogether, threw in £47.5 million man John Stones and introduced a new playing style at the Etihad Stadium.
The resulting performance was not spectacular but a laboured win, secured with an 87th-minute Paddy McNair own goal, was at least deserved and got the new regime up and running.
Guardiola said: “That is the first step and after that we can talk about the day’s performance, (whether we) play good or play bad.
“We made a really good build-up process with John, Kola (Aleksandar Kolarov) and Fernandinho, and then Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna.
“In those moments we should attack quicker, but this (so far) is normal in the moment that we are in, our condition. These kind of things must happen to learn what we have to do better but for the first game there were so many good things.”
It may take time for Guardiola’s blueprint to become fully apparent during the 38-game league season, but City’s change of approach was noticeable in the running the likes of Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling did off the ball.
Fernandinho also dropped back from midfield into defence on many occasions while full-backs Sagna and Clichy were encouraged to move inside and upfield.
Centre-backs Stones and Kolarov came forward with the ball, with any sweeping up being done by the goalkeeper.
It was for this reason Willy Caballero was selected ahead of Hart, with Guardiola pointing out the England number one had spent less time in training on the new system as a result of his involvement at the European Championship finals in France.
That was an attention-grabbing selection but Guardiola repeated that it was “a decision for today”. He added Hart could easily return in the Champions League play-off at Steaua Bucharest tomorrow.
As for the unusual roles of the full-backs, Guardiola has no doubt his players will come to terms with it.
“They are intelligent guys,” he said.
“They are not kids. They have a lot of experience at this level. Of course, they have always played wide but they did more than good.”