Manchester City moved on to the next round of the FA cup after a 3-1 win over Cheltenham Town and Pep Guardiola was impressed with his team’s response after going down, and having to leave it very late, per Yahoo News.
For a major part of the game, it looked like City were in danger of being knocked out of the competition. Cheltenham took the lead in the 59th minute and it was a deserved lead for the hosts.
But they could not hold on to it, with City’s superior quality proving to be the difference, ultimately. They came storming back towards the end of the game and cruised comfortably to victory, scoring three goals in the final 13 minutes.
It was this response that made the manager happy as his team never stopped fighting and that led to victory. Goals from Phil Foden (81′), Gabriel Jesus (84′) and Ferran Torres (90’+4′) got them to the next round and when queried about the win, Guardiola told Yahoo:
“We learned to suffer and at the end the quality made the difference. We won the game and we are happy to win this game in this type of competition.
“We knew how tough it would be and the response from the players was magnificent. The chances we had a 0-0 were so clear and if we scored it would have be very different.
“In the FA Cup this is why it’s nice, everyone can beat everyone. I don’t have any regret over how we were behaving and the way we played. We scored three magnificent goals. We reacted so well, in this competition it’s not the first time a Premier League team has suffered. We suffered well.”
It would have been a major upset had the hosts managed to hang on to their lead, but the team from the Premier League, who are on a tremendous run of form right now, showed why their squad is so highly rated.
More than the goals, it was the attitude of the players that would have pleased the boss. Even when they were a goal down, they did not let their heads drop, and they kept coming back and that eventually paid off.
Manchester City can now focus on the league where they will be taking on West Brom on Tuesday. City will have a lot of positives to take from this game, and have to be happy with how they responded.