Guardiola: We will get back to our best again | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola says City are not playing perfectly and understands if the Etihad Stadium can get edgy.

City made it back-to-back victories in the Premier League as we started 2025 with a 4-1 victory over West Ham.

Despite the emphatic scoreline, Guardiola says we are still short of our best form which has seen us win a record-breaking four Premier League titles in a row.

WATCH: Brief highlights: City 4-1 West Ham

“Life is not the next 20 years or century, that City is going to win [all] the Premier Leagues,” the City boss said in his postmatch news conference.

“Sometimes it happens: accept the reality, we’re struggling, and they support us and they get behind us and they try to do it and we want to do it.

“It’s normal that reaction. Why? Because they saw something unique that this country never saw before - in terms of titles. Liverpool, Chelsea, United and Arsenal have all had their periods that were brilliant.

“I know it’s like maybe it’s not the same and that’s right it’s not. But we will do it, we will be back again.

“I want to fight and try to deliver to make people proud. Of course, if they help us it will be easier, that's for sure. If they help us to come back to the distance that we were will be shorter.”

And Guardiola has no doubts that his players haven’t lost any of their desire to fight for more City success.

“They are human beings and they want to try to do it,” he added. “My players, I know them perfectly. All of them want to do it and that’s enough.

“Always the fans are right. They come here to be delivered something that they enjoy. In some moments we do it, creating chances, but not in the way we were. The players know it.

“The players were there and if  I said after 4-1 they were fantastic and they said Pep what are you saying. We were there, we know when we were at our best, don’t lie to us!

“You cannot move forward if you do not accept the reality. If the players believe what they have done in the past is enough, they are wrong completely.

“But I see every day in the training sessions, the kilometres they run, that they are there.”

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And he gave the example of Nathan Ake’s desire to play despite not being fully fit as showing the commitment within the squad.

“We still have a lot of absences,” he said. “I want to say thank you to Nathan publicly because he’s played in a bad condition the last two or three games, especially against Everton and Leicester and made an incredible effort because he wasn’t fully recovered.

“With Nathan we are better, he is stable emotionally. With that and hopefully Ruben [Dias] and John [Stones], and hopefully [other] players coming back, we can find the right moment.”