“We need more pace, more passes in a row,” is what City manager Pep Guardiola said about his team if they are to overtake Liverpool at the top of the Premier League.
A comfortable 3-0 victory over bottom-of-the-table Huddersfield cut the points distance to the leaders at the top of the League back to 4 points.
However, he has laid down stricter guidelines for his team and expects them to better their performances if they are to reach their ambitions of acquiring trophies at the end of the season.
“If we want to achieve something and arrive in the last stages of all competitions, our game has to improve,” said the Spaniard, whose side seemed uncharacteristically slow and sloppy at Huddersfield, especially in the first half.
“We were not able to make a lot of passes, 10-15 passes in a row. When a team defends like [Huddersfield], you have to commit sometimes to move them a little bit. That is what we have to improve. Always in football when you play good you have the ball as much as possible. Here we had the ball but not in effective positions and sometimes we lost the ball quite easily.”
Manchester City will face Bundesliga club Schalke in the Round of 16 stages of the Champions League on 21 February.