Pep urges City to kick on ahead of West Ham clash | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola says he wants last Sunday’s 2-0 win at Leicester to act as the ideal inspiration to help kick-start City into a consistent run of form as we prepare for our first match of 2025.

The Premier League champions will welcome West Ham United to the Etihad on Saturday afternoon seeking to build on that important triumph at the King Power Stadium.

The victory in the East Midlands helped check what had been a frustrating run of results over the final two months of 2024, and also lifted City back up into the top six.

Addressing the media at Friday’s pre-match press conference, the City boss said he was hoping the Leicester win had helped reinforce to his players – all serial winners over the past few years – what they are capable of.

And he said the message to his squad as we prepared to welcome the Hammers to the Etihad was a simple one.

“We have to play better,” Guardiola declared.

“It’s easy for me [to say] ‘we don't run or fight’. When you lose all the time, a lot of the managers [say] ‘we don’t have spirit or character we don't have this type of stuff.

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“How do you measure that? I measure it if we don’t play good. What we sustained in the past is our level and consistency in how we were playing. And the control of many aspects of the game.

“And the reason why we mainly didn’t win is because we didn’t play good. Because we are not a team to make incredible runs in transition or physicality - we never have been.

“I’ve said many times we play with players in the past who are not strong box to box players in this kind of stuff and we handle it.

“The main reason to play good is many aspects and focus in the mind on what you have to do. That's what we’ve missed in this part of the season.

“We have to recover our game because we were lucky against Leicester, it happened.

“I know our level because I've seen it in front of my eyes for many, many years. I’m not going to deny myself, the players aren’t going to deny themselves the reality.

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“How good is it that we win? We won one game. We could win against Everton, right? We played better and maybe we didn’t win.

“Against Manchester United we were close even though we weren’t at our best.

“We have incredible good parts and games, like in Lisbon in the Champions League [away to Sporting].

“We lost 4-1 and we played really, really good. In the first half it could have been 0-3 or 1-3.

“There are a lot of examples in parts, it's football and sometimes you need a change, and something reminded to recover some aspect and [help lift] the team and that’s what I need right now.

“What has happened is the past, they need to play better - this is the point.

“And that's why the victory in Leicester was really, really important, I don’t deny that.”

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City v West Ham app coverage

Our official app allows you to follow all of the action from Manchester in one place.

Minute-by-minute text updates will begin in our Matchday Centre two hours before kick-off, while our Matchday Live show will begin at around 13:45 (UK).

Joleon Lescott, Jill Scott and Marlon Harewood will be the guests on the latest Matchday Live show, offering their expert insight before, during and after the action.

During the game you can also listen to live audio commentary from Alistair Mann and Andy Morrison while our text commentary continues.

Make sure to have push notifications turned on as well, so you can be alerted to key moments in the action, including goals, red cards and the team news.

Short highlights from the match will be available from 19:00 (UK), whilst extended highlights from the encounter and a full-match replay available on CITY+ can be accessed from midnight.