Pep demands defensive improvement from City

Pep Guardiola has called on Manchester City to improve defensively after Fulham failed to take a number of chances at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.

City edged the game 3-2 despite Fulham creating an xG of 2.4 compared to 1.5 from Guardiola’s side.

Adama Traoré was guilty of missing three golden chances and was denied twice by Éderson in one-on-one situations.

“There are actions we can defend better but step by step we will improve,” Guardiola said. “Adama is unstoppable, that guy. It’s impossible to control him. Absolutely it was a tough game but we knew it. They lost just one game at Old Trafford and they are playing really, really good. Marco [Silva] is an exceptional manager.”

City went 1-0 down at the Etihad for the third time this season when Andreas Pereira scored following an outrageous Raúl Jiménez assist.

Guardiola’s team haven’t kept a clean sheet in the Premier League since the opening weekend of the season.

But despite their defensive issues, they were still able to bounce back against Fulham with two goals from Mateo Kovacic and another from substitute Jérémy Doku to stretch their unbeaten run at home in all competitions to 50 games.

“It’s not nice to come back from 0-1 but we created chances to go 1-0 and 2-0,” Guardiola said. “I would say except for Brentford, the other ones we were playing good.

“Sometimes I give credit. The first goal, who expected Jimenez to do this incredible touch? Why don’t we give credit to them rather than defensively?”

Meanwhile, Fulham boss Marco Silva was left feeling his team should have taken more from the game after what was an impressive performance from the visitors.

“We have to be really unhappy with the result,” he said. “Performance-wise it was a very good one. We deserve more from the game but that’s football.”